Kate's Story
by Humphrey Loves Kate
Summary: Kate was not always the responsible, uptight alpha seen in A&O. Just like Garth, she has a past that made her who she is in the movie. How did she become one of the lead alphas? More importantly, how did she meet Humphrey? Kate's Story will be directly parallel to Garth's Story and will be loaded with more romance and surprises! Observe Kate like you never have before!
1. Chapter 1

KATE'S STORY

By Humphrey Loves Kate

(Note: All original Alpha and Omega Characters are property of Lionsgate and the original creators.)

Chapter One

"KATE!" an angry voice yelled to its daughter. "GET OVER HERE!"

"Uh-oh!" a young tan wolf pup named Kate said to herself. Kate and her sister Lilly had been playing around like young pups do all morning. For some reason or another, Kate's mother, Eve, was very aggravated. Kate could only hope that it was not what she thought it was…

"Is that Mom?" Lilly asked. Lilly was a shy, white wolf pup with lavender eyes. She was nearly the opposite of her sister Kate, the fun, outgoing, and somewhat bubbly one.

Kate gulped. "Yes," she started, "yes it is! I didn't think it was a good idea."

"But you said it would be fun!" Lilly protested.

"I never said it was a good idea, though," Kate replied. Then she mischievously whispered to Lilly, "Let's go see what 'the beast' wants!"

Lilly laughed at this. Her mother was quite "beastly" when she was angered. Everyone in the entire pack, the Western Pack of Jasper Park, Canada that is, knew that Eve had severe temper tantrum issues.

Kate's mother was named Eve and her father was named Winston. Eve and Winston were both the leaders of the Western Pack and they had two daughters separated by a few months in age: Kate, the older one, and Lilly, the younger one. Neither Kate nor Lilly had been classified in the pack's social classes of alphas and omegas because they were too young. When they were older, however, they would have the opportunity to take the Alpha School Administration Test (ASAT. Remember that one?).

The only way for a wolf to become an alpha was by passing both the test and the following single semester of Alpha School. Wolves had three chances to pass the test and while it was required to take the test in order to get into Alpha School it was not required if a wolf wished to be an omega in the pack. There were rules that went with this social division. The main one was that alphas and omegas could not engage in any type of romantic activity whatsoever. In addition to this, alphas had more privileges and more responsibilities while omegas pretty much did whatever they wanted and had to simply keep the peace in the pack through jokes and fun.

Kate walked up to her parents' den where she found her mother waiting outside with an angry glare on her face. Kate sat down and asked her Mom, "Did you need me?"

"Yes, I did," Eve growled. "Did you in and around the herds of caribou again?"

"Um, yes. I did," Kate admitted.

"And did you lead Lilly into it as well?"

"Yes," Kate sighed. She knew that she was in DEEP trouble.

"I told you last week that that was a very dangerous and irresponsible thing to do! And I said that if you did it again, I'd UNLEASH ALL THE WRATHS OF LIVING NATURE ON YOUR…" Eve realized she was using language that was way too strong for her daughter to hear from her. She took a breath and used a much nicer voice to finish. "I mean, that I would have to punish you in some way. Did I not say that?"

"Yes ma'am, you did," Kate hung her head down in shame.

"Okay then. You're not going to play with your friends today."

"But Mom! We've been planning this for a week! We were going to have a sleepover before the next ASAT gets too close!"

"Hmmm… Maybe you should've thought about that BEFORE YOU ENDANGERED YOUR FOUR MONTH OLD LIFE!" Eve realized she had just lost it again. "I mean, before you played around the dangerous caribou." Eve smiled at her daughter who rolled her eyes in response. "Oh baby, I'm sorry, I just want you to realize that caribou are dangerous. If they got scared of you and Lilly, they might have caused a stampede. They're so much bigger than you and you just have to remember to be careful. Besides, you don't want to know what it's like to be clonked on the head with a hoof or anything like that."

"I'm sorry, Mom," Kate said quietly. But her head was already filling up of ideas and methods of finding a loophole in this untimely sentence. Hundreds of things were already flashing back and forth through the young wolf's mind. The possibilities were really endless! Kate would find a way out of this, whether her mother knew it… OR NOT!

"Oh Kate, when will you learn responsibility?" Eve said not realizing she had said it aloud.

Kate walked off acting like she was calm, when she was really quite angry with her mother. "When will you learn responsibility?" she mocked. "I'll show you responsibility! I made a commitment to this sleepover! It would be 'irresponsible' to say I was coming and then not show up! So technically, if I go, I'm being responsible! And that's what she wants, apparently! Hee hee! I am such a genius!" Kate cheered to herself right when she bumped into Lilly.

"Oh hey Kate. So how are you a genius?" Lilly questioned.

Kate stared blankly at her sister. "Ummm… I… I found you really quickly! Yeah…"

"Ohhhkay…" Lilly exclaimed.

"Well, let's get back to the den, girly."

"Right behind ya!"

Kate led Lilly back to the family den. Lilly walked in before her once they arrived and Kate mumbled to herself, "I have a sleepover to get to!"

**Author's Note: Well, here it finally is! Kate's Story! I hope you guys enjoy the first chapter! And it seems that Kate wasn't always the responsible kind of overachiever we saw in Alpha and Omega! What happened there? Leave a review (please?) and stay tuned!**

**Please note: This story will be parallel to Garth's Story, meaning that everything that happens to Kate happens in the same world while Garth's Story takes place. So while Kate is figuring out how to get to the sleepover tonight, Garth is probably out playing with Alex or something, for an example. Also, this story will have a lot of romance in later chapters and apparently a bit of Kate getting into mischief! Enjoy it!  
**

**REVIEW PLEASE!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Kate had been thinking all day about how she would get to the sleepover. Finally, the mischievous pup thought up a very simple plan. She told her friends that there were some "family issues" and that she would be an hour or so late. This gave her plenty of time to sneak out after her mother and father had fallen asleep.

Winston, Eve and Lilly were finally all asleep, so Kate slunk past all of them to the outdoors. Once she had successfully maneuvered around her family members, she darted off away from the "crime scene" so to speak, and headed straight for her friend Carly's den where the sleepover would be taking place. About four wolves besides Kate were present. The names of these four female wolves were Carly, Nicki, Reba and Janice.

"Girls! Look! Kate finally made it!" Carly, a silver furred wolf, exclaimed.

"Kate! What took you so long?" another female wolf named Nicki asked. Nicki had tan fur that was darker than Kate's.

"I had a little 'business' to take care of," Kate explained. "Mother didn't want me to come here tonight, but I worked things out."

"What kind of business?" Reba asked. Reba was a grey wolf who had a liking to berries, a strange characteristic among wolves.

"Um…" Kate paused. "I kind of just told you."

"Reba, dear," Nicki said, "I think Kate's trying to insinuate that she snuck out."

Kate nodded her head and Reba's eyes grew wide with realization.

"Girl you are one naughty pup!" Janice explained. Janice had tan fur that was a shade lighter than Kate's fur.

"Yeah, I know," Kate said half to herself.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Carly said. "Let's get this party started!"

Everyone cheered and went inside Carly's den.

Kate went inside of the den with her friends. She didn't know it, but fate had her here at this very sleepover for a very important reason.

**Author's Note: It's embarrassing for me to say "REVIEW" after a pitiful update like that so I'm not really going to say it like I usually do. Ahem. *Pause* Do what you kind readers do after you finish a chapter. Hee hee. (Good luck on finding something to review about!)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Here's a much better chapter! Enjoy!**

Chapter Three

"Girls!" Nicki shouted out. The female wolf pups had been having a lot of fun already at the sleepover and it was getting a little late. "I've got an idea," Nicki finished.

"Well tell us!" Janice said. She was sometimes a little impatient.

"Okay okay okay!" Nicki said getting in Janice's face and mocking her impatience. Nicki took a breath in and continued. "Well, I heard earlier today that some of the boys in the pack are having a sleepover this same night! So why don't we go over there and do a little secret agent work."

"You mean you want to go spy on the guys?" Carly asked in pure astonishment. It didn't take her long, however, to realize how fun this could be. "I'm in!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah! Let's go!" Reba shouted excitedly.

"Right behind you!" Janice said as she followed the others outside of Carly's den.

Nicki turned back to look in the den. Kate was sitting in the entrance with a confused look on her face. "What's the matter, Kate?" Nicki questioned. "Don't you want to come?"

"Well… I uh…" Kate stuttered. "What about Carly's parents?" In reality, Kate was not so sure it was a good idea to spy on the guys' slumber party. She did not know why she thought this.

"Oh come on!" Carly said as she walked back up to Nicki and Kate. "Those two won't mind! They know I'm 'a good kid' and won't get into any serious trouble! Besides, they're out on a date anyway."

Kate still did not know what to do. She was all for the whole "sneaky business" but something about going to the guys' sleepover made her feel uneasy. "Well maybe… uhh…"

"Wait a second," Nicki began. "I think I know what the problem is! Kate's afraid to be around guys!"

"Is that true?!" Janice blurted out as she and Reba rejoined the others.

"No! It's not that, it's just I'm not used to being around guys!" Kate said defensively.

"Come on! The only reason you're nervous is because you don't know any cute guys!" Carly persuaded. She put her arm around Nicki and continued. "Let me and Nicki take care of you! We know some cuties!" Carly winked at Nicki when she said this. "Now let's go!"

"Okay," Kate said reluctantly. She never did hang out with guys so this might be a fun change.

The five mischievous pups walked to another area in the Western Pack's territory and easily found where the guys' sleepover was taking place. There were four young male wolves, and they were making so much noise by running around, yelling and shouting that any female wolf could have found them very easily. Taking cover behind some nearby shrubbery, the girls began whispering to each other.

"So now what?" Janice whispered.

"I don't know! I guess we just hide behind here like total creepers!" Nicki quickly said.

"Good plan!" Reba affirmed.

"No!" Carly started. "Not a good plan! I say we go out and talk to them! Kate's never really met any guys anyway! She needs to learn what they're like."

Janice commented on Carly's statement, "You mean besides the fact that they don't like girls until they're…

"Janice! Shut up!" Carly said in a loud whisper.

"Wait! What do you mean they don't like girls? Why are we bothering with them anyway?!" Kate was now wildly confused.

"You really need to get out more," Nicki concluded.

"Okay! Here's the deal!" Carly began explaining things to Kate. "For some odd reason, guy wolves never start liking girls until they're six or eight months old! They think that it's 'cool' or whatever to think girls are gross and not fun to be with! But we girls, on the other hand, somehow manage to fall for them every single time because they're so dang cute: even before they start liking us!"

"Well that's DUMB!" Kate blurted out in a tone that was far too audible for a spy. Reba, Janice, Carly and Nicki hushed her as soon as she said this.

"See? You're catching on!" Carly congratulated Kate. "It's very dumb! I don't know why we do it!"

"They're cute! DUH!" Nicki said still whispering.

"That's probably why," Carly said. "Anyway, let's go make ourselves known!" Carly left the cover of the shrubbery and started walking towards the group of guys.

"Is she crazy?!" Reba whispered to the other three.

"I think so," Janice said. "But who cares!?" Janice followed Carly and soon had Nicki, Kate and Reba running to catch up.

When Carly saw that everyone had come out of the shrubbery and that the guys had still not noticed their presence, she said, "Now Kate, you follow my lead and you'll be okay."

Kate nodded and stuck close to Carly's side.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Carly said as she approached the four wolves.

"Whoa! Hold up! Humphrey, isn't this a 'no girls allowed' party?" the shortest gray wolf said.

"That's what I thought," a heavier and lighter colored wolf exclaimed.

"Well then what are they doing here?" another gray wolf said. He was taller than the first gray wolf but not as heavy as the second gray wolf.

"Guys! Calm down!" a light gray wolf said. "I'm sure they have a good reason."

"Whatever," the shortest one said.

Kate looked around at the group of males. She really had never been around so many male wolves her age all at once. All she could do was look around. The wolves had been playing some sort of game involving a stick, but she did not know what they had been doing with it. There was a den tucked away behind the group, which was probably where the four guys would go to sleep, if they ever ran out of energy. Kate also noticed the four guy wolves in front of her. One of them was really short, almost as if he had not hit any growth spurts at all. The second was a bit heavy, like he ate more than the usual wolf around mealtimes. The third wolf seemed to be interested in everything all at once, as he was constantly looking around and unable to focus on any one object for a good amount of time. The fourth wolf must have been the one that the first wolf had called "Humphrey." Kate looked at him last and… WHOA! There was something about him! He looked so sweet! Kate could not help herself. "Humphrey" was so cute! His fur was smooth. His eyes were really gorgeous! And his tail was so… FLUFFY! Kate just wanted to go up and play with it! Then, of course, there was the fact that he seemed like he did not mind girls. Carly had said that boy wolves don't like girl wolves until they were six or eight months old. Humphrey did not seem like that. He definitely stood out to her more than any of the other male wolves!

"Kate!" Carly said snapping Kate out of her observation trance. "Are you there? Humphrey was introducing us to his friends."

"Huh?! What?" Kate could not believe she had been so occupied in looking around at the guys, who she thought would be boring, that she had missed a whole two minutes of conversation!

"Well, as I was saying," Humphrey rolled his eyes and let his mouth hang open in sarcasm. Kate giggled at this. Humphrey was funny too! "These are my friends Mooch," Humphrey pointed to the heavy one, "Salty,' Humphrey pointed to the shortest one, "and Shakey," Humphrey pointed to the one that was trying to look at everything all at once.

Kate nodded her head, staring at the group of wolves.

Carly smiled at the guys and inconspicuously nudged Kate. Through her teeth, and without moving her mouth, Carly whispered, "Say something! Now!"

Kate was caught off guard, but quickly thought of something to say. "Um, hi guys." She waved to everyone and then stared at Humphrey.

Nicki slapped her paw to her face when she saw Kate struggling with what was really a common social situation. She was situated behind Carly and Kate so that none of the guys could see her, fortunately.

"Well it's great to have you girls here and all," Salty began, "but we're gonna have to ask you to leave because this is a NO GIRLS ALLOWED SLEEPOVER! Bye, and have a nice evening."

Nicki could not help but laugh when she saw how right Carly had been about boys thinking girls were gross.

"Okay," Carly concluded. "We'll be on our way. See ya!"

The females walked away from the guys and began talking amongst each other again.

Humphrey stared as the girls walked away. He had never seen the golden tan wolf before. Carly had said her name was Kate, but that was when Kate was in her trance. There was something about Kate, however. It was something Humphrey had never really felt in his life ever before.

"So, how was your first guy experience?" Carly questioned Kate as the female wolves walked back to Carly's den.

"It was actually kind of cool," Kate concluded.

"You didn't say much," Reba said.

"Neither did you, Reba," Nicki said.

"Yeah, Reba, you and Janice hardly said a word," Kate chimed in.

Reba and Janice shrugged.

"Anyway, what made you so silent?" Carly continued her interrogation.

"Well, you know, I was just looking at everything," Kate vaguely explained.

"Everything?" all four of the wolves asked Kate.

"Or was it one thing in particular?" Nicki asked.

"Come on, Kate," Carly persuaded, "I think we all know what was going on in your mind."

"Well, uh…" Kate started to feel like she was being cornered.

"Alright! Spill it out! You thought somebody was cute, didn't you?" Nicki said.

Kate started smiling. "Maybe."

"Who was it?" Carly pushed on.

"I'll only tell you if you SWEAR that you won't tell anyone outside of this group," Kate agreed.

"We all swear," all four wolves said.

"Okay. It was Humphrey," Kate announced.

"Aww! He is pretty cute, isn't he?" Reba said.

"Hee hee! Yep. He's pretty funny, he's cute and I was crazy…" Kate thought the part about Humphrey's "fluffy tail" might be a little too embarrassing, so she withheld it. "I was crazy over his cuteness."

"Congratulations, Kate," Carly said. "You have your first crush!"

Kate smiled at this. "Yeah, I guess I do."

**Author's Note: Well what do you think? Do you like how I made Salty a shorty who hasn't reached his growth spurt? How about Kate falling in love with Humphrey's tail? I thought that was kind of creative. But you get to tell me what you think in a review! Go ahead… Please? Please? Please? FOR THE LOVE OF HUMPHREY'S FLUFFY TAIL! Haha! Random…**

**Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, it's gonna be pretty impossible for me to update this story every single day. I will try my best to update as much as possible but this tutorial thing I go to is described as college prep in some cases. So it does suck up a lot of my time. But don't worry, I will be updating as much as possible. Please review! Love you guys! By the way, there's a new poll out on my page. It's just for fun, though. Check it out.**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

It was midmorning when Kate jumped out of her sleep. She knew she had to do something very important, but she could not place her paw on it. Glancing at her surroundings, Kate's jaw dropped when she found she was still in Carly's den. She was supposed to be back home before sunrise so her parents would not find out that she was missing! With not a second to lose, Kate jerked Carly awake to let her know she was going home! "Carly! Carly! Wake up!" she said.

"What?" Carly asked still very engaged in the world of sleep.

"I gotta get home! My parents will kill me if they find I'm still here!" Kate cried.

"Okay, bye, thanks for…" Carly let out a large yawn. "Thanks for coming," she finished.

Kate darted off from the den at top speed, her thoughts running back and forth through her young and devious mind on how she could cover up her "absence." _Okay! Okay! _she thought. _What to do! What to do! I gotta make Mom and Dad think I just went out for an early walk, no! An early run! Yeah, and while I was out, I took a bath! Better get wet to make that look believable._

Kate ran alongside a stream, took a deep breath, and quickly soaked her body. When she leapt out literally two seconds later, she resumed her run back to her den.

Lilly was lying on her belly playing with her tail and bangs when Kate came sliding into the Alpha Family's den due to her wet paws. Lilly stopped what she was doing and walked up to Kate suspiciously. "Um, good morning Kate," she said. "What's the rush?"

"OH! Oooohhhhh!" Kate recalled her story/excuse combo that she had made up on the way back over. "I was just on an early morning run when I lost track of time and realized I had better hurry up to get here for breakfast."

"Breakfast?!" Lilly exclaimed with shock in her young and slightly squeaky voice. "You missed breakfast way over an hour ago! Ha ha!"

Kate's face looked exactly like any face that suddenly realizes there's a small flaw in an ingenious plan. "Wow! I guess I was just having too much fun. Oh well."

"Mom and Dad have been wondering where you were ever since they woke up. They'll be glad to see you!"

Kate smiled at this. Her little sister would believe anything. She probably would believe it if Kate made up something outrageous, even if it was something as insane as caribou being brown unicorns that had way too many horns. Kate thought she might try that one on her one day, just for kicks.

Just then Eve walked into the den. "KATE!" she yelled letting her inner monologue emerge. "I mean, Sweetie, where have you been?" she said seeing Kate standing next to Lilly.

"I know where she's been!" Lilly blurted out. "She went on an early morning run!"

Kate rolled her eyes. At least Lilly was saying what she wanted her mom to hear.

"Well why are you wet?" Eve innocently questioned.

"I took a quick dip in the stream towards the end of my run," Kate answered. She thought about what she had just said, and then realized that it was one hundred percent true. She HAD been running, and towards the end, she DID take a QUICK dip in the stream. _Wow, this is working better than I thought! YES!_

Eve laughed. "Certainly was a long run. You keep this up and you'll have absolutely no problem becoming a top alpha, which is exactly what Mommy wants. Okay?"

"Sure thing!" Kate said happily. _I'm such an evil genius!_ she was thinking in her mind. _That or she really knows! Oops! I hope it's the first one!_

"So are you hungry?" Eve asked. "Or did you eat something at Carly's sleepover this morning?"

"Actually, I was the first one up and they hadn't had breakfast when I lef-" Kate suddenly realized what her mom was doing. "Oh shoot!"

"You're not the only little mastermind in this family, young lady! Daddy talked to Carly's dad early this morning in an alpha meeting and found out that you were there all along. But he didn't have to, because we really knew all along! Now go to bed for the rest of the day!"

"WHAT?" Kate said in astonishment. She had already had nine hours of sleep. "But I'm not tired!"

"I don't care!" Eve interjected. "You can just sit there all day and run through that intelligent little mind of yours what the better choice would have been last night. And if you're not tired by bedtime, you can KEEP doing it all frea… Eh, free… ALL NIGHT!" Eve had trouble controlling her mouth even around her young daughters. She would need to work on that.

"Breakfast?" Kate asked meekly.

"Breakfast is over. You weren't here for breakfast so you can't be that hungry! Be good, and you can have lunch."

Kate slumped off to her little bed towards the back of the den and plopped down on it. "What an idiot!" she mouthed when Eve wasn't looking. _Being a kid stinks! Everyone tells you what to do and you have to listen to them! I can't wait until I'm grown up! Then I can be the boss of myself!_

Lilly had been staring at the entire scene between Kate and Eve. She looked at her mother. "Is Kate in BIIIG trouble?" she questioned with childish emphasis on the word "big."

"Oh yeah, Darling," Eve assured Lilly. "She's in 'BIIIG' trouble!" Eve imitated Lilly on the word "big."

"I guess I better not do anything bad, cause I don't want you and Daddy to yell at me," Lilly innocently concluded.

"That's right, Honey." Eve confirmed. "Nobody's perfect, but you have to try your hardest to keep from doing anything bad."

"Okay," Lilly said nodding her head.

**Author's Note: I'M SO SORRY IT'S BEEN SO LONG! But it turns out, I have a busier than average lifestyle. I compared my daily life to that of some other people to conclude this. What do you know? *Insert nervous laugh for no reason whatsoever* **

**Also, I have an announcement to make! Ahem. During my absence, I've been thinking. (I think about this story every day, by the way.) I really feel like my story Love Knows No Sizes was rushed and is not as good as it could or should be. Such a coincidence since "not being good enough" is the theme to that story. Hee hee! Anyway, I did want to do a lot more in that story but I wrapped it up rapidly and completely changed what I had in mind for the ending. Thus, I will be rewriting that story with greater detail, a different plot but with the same general premise, and more "shrunken time" or whatever for our omega friends. The opening will be pretty much exactly the same so I'll probably just copy and paste the first two chapters more than likely making them one chapter and then going on from there with several changes. You can get by with a "speed read" of the first chapter if you've already read that story. Then, once I feel like everything is RIGHT, I will put the "original" ending in there for you guys to see what was originally planned. Hope to see you reading! Oh yeah! Kate's Story will hold priority and I will always work on that BEFORE I work on Love Knows No Sizes. Thanks guys! Review on Kate's mischievous behavior, if you have a minute… or a second.**

**:D **


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: This one's a little short; sorry about that, but it's necessary.**

Chapter Five

Kate's day passed in pure and seemingly meaningless misery! She did nothing but sit, lie down, and stare at the wall all day! _I am soooo bored!_ Kate thought. _If it's possible to die from boredom, I'm pretty close!_

As she continued to sit with absolutely nothing to do but think to herself, Kate ran all of her "options" through her mind. The way she saw it, she could continue her punishment and be free the next day, which seemed like a whole lifetime away, or she could find a way "out" of her punishment. Of course Kate knew that option number one was the RIGHT thing to do, but, as she continued to contemplate on the topic, she realized the FUN and ENTERTAINING thing to do would be to think up another devious scheme and get out of her punishment. But this would be difficult; Eve was in and out of the den all the time, and she always made sure Kate was where she was supposed to be when she came in and before she left. Lilly was outside doing… something… Whatever it was that her little innocent and "oh so perfect personality" did all day. Lilly really got on Kate's nerves.

Lilly really did always seem to be on Eve and Winston's soft side. But who was she to blame them? Lilly never got into trouble, was always doing something cute, and was essentially clueless to how reality worked! Definitely a perfect child… One could only wonder how the relationship between Lilly and her parents would turn out when Lilly entered the teen days.

After Kate finished thinking about all of this, she decided that she would just go with the flow until her punishment was over. But there was no way she would forget this… EVER! There would undoubtedly be consequences.

Kate opened her eyes. Somehow, she had gotten SO bored that she simply dropped into slumber. It was dark outside, so she had slept for the remainder of the day. Eve, Winston, and Lilly were all lying down to enjoy rest. Kate had no idea whatsoever as to what the time was, so she got up to take a peek outside at the moon and stars. Perhaps she would be able to make an adequate guess when she saw their respective positions.

The moon was just about full and shining. The sky was so clear and the stars were so numerous, beautiful, and twinkling that Kate could not help but stare. She forgot all of her anger towards her family for punishing her and about how Lilly was always more perfect than her. Kate was in a trance, staring at millions of little lights in the sky. Kate's mind continued to clear until she felt free: so free that she might very well be the only living creature in all of the animal kingdom with the world up for her taking! And then… Kate was glad that she was not alone. She had a crush. A first love! Humphrey. Kate had a crush on Humphrey, and she wished that he of all wolves in the universe were right next to her! Both would be staring at the beautiful globs of flaming gas that were LIGHT YEARS away from them! It would be so romantic and not a single wolf, or a rule, or any obstacle of any sort would be in their way! Kate and Humphrey would be content simply to be in each other's presence with such a glorious view!

But then… Kate did not exactly "know" Humphrey. She had just met him. Humphrey probably did not even remember her name. With a wide yawn, Kate decided that she would fix this.

The next minute, Kate was asleep, dreaming of Humphrey and all the fun times they could have together.

**Author's Note:**

"**Hey! I just met you, and this is craaazy! But here's my number! So call me maybe! And all the other wolves… try to CHAAASE me! But here's my number! So call me maybe!"**

**I can't believe I just put a reference to that song in my story! Unbelievable!**

**Please leave a review! I'm really pleased with all the reviews I've been getting! Keep it up please!  
**

**One last thing! Check my profile later tonight if you'd like. I'll be making quite a few updates to it soon!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: Here's an example of what my writing looks like at one in the morning. *Insert insane laugh* Ahaha!**

Chapter Six

_ Kate was out in the field. She did not know where she was, and she didn't know what field she was in. At the moment, she knew nothing but the field was fun and entertaining. So she explored it._

_ As Kate explored the field, she became aware that the visual appearance of some objects was out of the ordinary. Some things were blurred, other things were plain black and white, and a few things seemed to be out of normal proportion. It all added up, though: nothing made sense._

_ "Hey Kate," Kate heard a young male voice say. She looked over her shoulder to where the voice seemed to come from. There was no one there. "I'm right here, Kate," the voice came again. Kate looked up to where she had been looking just a second before and saw Humphrey._

_ "Humphrey?" Kate asked._

_ "Come on," Humphrey said gesturing for Kate to follow him._

_ Kate followed Humphrey with a smile on her face, simply happy that Humphrey wanted to do something with her._

_ Suddenly, there was a wave of golden light and Kate found herself somewhere else. She looked around and discovered that she and Humphrey were on top of a snow covered hill. _What is this white stuff?_ Kate thought to herself. Since she was a young pup still, she had never seen snow in person. Some of the older wolves had attempted to describe snow to her before, but Kate was so confused by their explanations of white fluffy stuff falling from the sky and being cold, wet, and flaky at the same time that her mind could not imagine it. _

_The next moment, both wolves were trying to outrun a strange monster by sliding down the hill in a hollowed out tube that had been split in half. Kate could not understand anything that was going on, however. All she knew was that she and Humphrey were in danger and Humphrey was trying to get them both out of harm's way._

_The wolves were almost to the bottom of the hill. The monster had vanished, however, there was an unexpected surprise waiting for them at the bottom of the hill. Out of nowhere, several large metal boxes came plowing through the ground, one right after the other. To Kate's surprise, no dirt, grass, rocks or any earth was kicked up in the process. Then again nothing was making sense on this day. Kate and Humphrey were now trying to get inside one of the boxes, but they weren't making it. Desperately, they tried to keep up with the boxes, which showed no sign of slowing down. And then, something really weird happened. Two birds simply appeared and somehow shoved both wolves into one of the boxes. They had made it safely inside._

_Another wave of golden light engulfed Kate. When the light cleared this time, Kate found herself back in her own territory at nighttime. She and Humphrey were sitting side by side and staring up at the gorgeous night sky, this time. Humphrey put his paw on top of Kate's paw, and the two wolves leaned their heads in towards each other._

"_Kate," Humphrey said._

"_Yes Humphrey?" Kate replied._

_Humphrey got up and turned so that he was facing Kate. The two wolves stared into each other's eyes. Finally Humphrey spoke up and said, "I lo-"_

_There was shaking! The entire scene literally fell apart like glass shattering! And Kate was in the dark and all alone._

* * *

"Kate! It's time to get up!" Lilly said as she shook her sister's body a lot more than what was required to wake a sleeping wolf up.

"No! Humphrey, don't go!" Kate said.

"Kate, you're dreaming!" Lilly tried to explain.

Kate opened her eyes. It was midmorning, and she was still outside of the den. "What?" she asked. Little by little, everything was fading from her mind.

"You were asleep and having some sort of dream," Lilly said excitedly. "What was it about?"

Kate thought about Lilly's question. What was her dream about? Although she had literally just awakened, Kate could not remember a single thing from that dream, EXCEPT that Humphrey was in it and something had happened between the two of them. Kate was not about to tell Lilly this, so she resented with a "mostly" true story. "I can't remember," she told her overly innocent little sister.

"Aw! I hate it when that happens!" Lilly exclaimed. "Well, Mom and Dad got us breakfast, and you had better come eat some before it is gone!"

Kate watched as Lilly ran back into the den. Still troubled by her strange dream, Kate sat in silence trying to recall what had happened in the mayhem of her mind. Sadly, Kate realized nothing was going to come back to her, so she clung onto the facts: Humphrey had been in her dream, and that's all that mattered.

**Author's Note: Little weird, right? But wait… What's up with Kate's dream? She just FREAKING DREAMED ABOUT THE FUTURE and she doesn't even know it! That's kind of cool… and creepy… But more cool!**

**Review buttons for your convenience. Hee hee… Thanks guys! I owe you one! So, how about the next chapter? It's coming soon, so stay tuned!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: A lot of info at the end of this chapter. Be sure to check it out after enjoying the feature presentation!**

Chapter Seven

Kate's morning seemed to slowly drag by with "The Dream" still in her mind. She ate breakfast slowly, she responded slowly, she even talked slowly! It did not take too long for Kate's family to realize that something was wrong.

Winston could not take it any longer, so he spoke up. "Kate, is something troubling you?"

Kate had zoned into a trance. When her father spoke, she snapped out of it. "Oh! Wha-what?!"

Winston repeated the question.

"Oh, not really," Kate answered, "I just had a weird dream last night and can't remember anything about it."

"Oh, I HATE it when that happens!" Eve blurted out.

Winston shook his head and then continued the conversation, "You can't remember a thing at all?"

Kate could not remember a single thing EXCEPT the fact that Humphrey was somehow involved in her dream. Unfortunately, Kate's parents did not know that Kate had met Humphrey. This was a BIG problem. How Kate would work herself out of this one is currently a mystery even to the author.

"Well…" Kate racked her brain. "I… I guess not."

"Awww, that's too bad," Lilly said. "I like hearing other wolves' dreams!"

"Right." Kate said. "Well, I can't remember it, I haven't the slightest clue as to what it was about, so that is that!" Kate then rapidly ate her caribou share and got up from her sitting position. "So," she continued with meat in her mouth, "Am I ungrounded now?"

Winston looked at Eve. "What do you think?"

Eve shrugged. "Maybe, if she behaves…" Eve thought for a second. "Well, she did accept her punishment and sit in the corner all day yesterday. Okay, you can go out IF you behave! Deal?"

Kate thought for a second with her paw on her chin. "Define 'behave,'" she finally said.

"KATE!" Eve yelled.

"YES MA'AM!" Kate answered.

Eve smiled at Winston as Kate left the den. "Such a good little daughter we have," she said in her sweet voice.

With wide eyes, Winston nodded his head and then exited the den to go and make sure that all the alphas were doing what they were supposed to be doing.

* * *

When Kate got outside of the den, she breathed in the fresh, midmorning air and set off to find her friends. Before long, she found Carly and Nicki down at the stream. They were talking to each other, of course.

Approaching her friends, Kate jumped in on the conversation. "Hey girls, what's up?"

Carly laughed. "A ha! Actually, we were talking about you and Humphrey."

"CARLY! REALLY?!" Kate said startled to hear this news. "You know it's just a teensy weensy crush, right?"

"Sure it is," Nicki said. "So what do you say when we tell you that we're going over to play with them in a few minutes and aren't inviting you?"

Kate's jaw dropped open. "WHAT?!" she exclaimed. "You can't go see Humphrey without me."

"She's kidding," Carly quickly said in an attempt to calm Kate's nerves. "We would not go see Humphrey and not invite you."

"But, are you really going to see him?" Kate questioned her friends.

"Only if you come," Nicki said.

"Right behind you!" Kate said.

Carly, Kate, and Nicki set out to find the guys. It didn't take too long before they found them at the top of a grassy hill gathered around a hollowed out log that had been split in two. The girls' ears gradually tuned into what the boys were saying.

"Dude! That's crazy!" Salty said. "We'll die or something!"

"I think it would be fun," Mooch said. "Dangerous, but fun."

"Salty's right," Shakey began, "I mean you don't just slide down the hill in a log for the heck of it."

"Come on guys! It will be fun, I promise," Humphrey tried to convince his friends.

Just then, Kate, Carly, and Nicki walked up.

"Hey guys. What's up?" Carly casually said.

"Your face is up!" Salty said.

Humphrey turned to Salty with an angry and shocked look on his face. Then he whispered, "Salty! Shut up! These are HER friends."

"Relax, Humphrey," Salty whispered, "I got this."

Humphrey turned to Shakey with a look of "HELP" on his face.

"Oh! Um, Mooch, let's go with Salty down to the valley to… uh, to…"

"To get FOOD!" Mooch finished for him.

"Works for me!" Shakey said as he grabbed Salty and began walking down the hill.

"I'll catch up with you guys later!" Humphrey yelled down to his friends as they continued to walk down the hill.

"Where were we?" Humphrey said mostly to himself. "Oh right! Hi girls."

"Hey," all three girls said simultaneously.

"Oh gosh!" Nicki suddenly exclaimed. "I know we just got here, but um, yeah… Carly and I were supposed to meet our parents five minutes ago so we'll just leave you two here. Later guys!"

Nicki and Carly then walked back down the hill occasionally glancing over their shoulders to get a look at Humphrey and Kate.

When Kate realized she was alone with her crush, she freaked out. _Oh gosh!_ she thought. _I'm alone! What do I say? How do I act? Why have I never been around boys before!/?_

"Kate, are you okay?" Humphrey asked.

"Hmm?" Kate said snapping out of her trance. "Oh yeah, I just… yeah… Um, OH NO!" Kate realized she was screwing up her very first one on one encounter with Humphrey and slapped her paw to her face.

Humphrey noticed Kate was not doing well in socializing with him, so he quickly thought of something to help her out. "Hey, listen, do you wanna start, I don't know, hanging out with me and the guys every now and then?"

"What?" Kate said looking up at Humphrey? "But… You're a guy! And you want a girl hanging out with you?"

"Well, why not?" Humphrey asked.

Kate thought to herself for a moment. Why shouldn't she hang out with Humphrey? The only bad thing that could go wrong was her parents did not like it. But lately, Kate did not really care what her parents did or thought...

"Okay," Kate agreed to Humphrey's offer. "I gotta… Go, now. But yeah, I'll see you around. Kay?"

"Sure thing," Humphrey said as he turned around and began to walk away.

Kate's eyes widened when Humphrey turned around. HIS FLUFFY TAIL WAS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF HER! _It's so fluffy…. It's so fluffy… and cute! But more fluffy!_ Kate thought to herself. She did not realize it at first, but she had the biggest smile ever on her face. It took every ounce of willpower that she had for her to resist the urge to go up and play with it. Fortunately, Humphrey was soon outside of Kate's view, and thus the urge died down.

**Author's Note: Okay, guys, I'm really really sad right now because this really sweet ninth grade girl in my community has had cancer for the past three years maybe and I found out that she died sometime yesterday on 10/2/2012. She wasn't in my school, but she was really sweet to everyone and I did get the chance to meet her once. I'm really upset! Here's what I wrote about her on FB:  
**

**It's hard to believe, but I actually talked to her for maybe 7 minutes a year ago in an AT&T store. It didn't even take that long for me to realize that she was such a sweet person. It's kind of strange: I never knew her, but somehow, I miss her. :'/**


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: Well, this one is really short but it is a KEY chapter. You'll see why when you read it, of course. Enjoy!**

Chapter Eight

Kate and Humphrey spent a great deal of time together. The problem was that Kate was never truly "alone" with Humphrey. Salty, Shakey, and Mooch were always right around the corner and seemed to just pop up at the most inconvenient time. However, Kate was always kind to Salty Shakey and Mooch whenever this happened. After all, she knew that Humphrey had met his other friends before her and that they were just as important for Humphrey to be around as she was. In addition to this, Kate found that she got distracted from Humphrey whenever his friends were around, which really was a good thing.

On one particular occasion, way into their relationship as "friends," Kate and Humphrey found themselves alone. They were just sitting together in a field, side by side, enjoying the beauty of nature around them as the breeze brushed over their fur. It was then when things started to get REALLY serious!

"Um, Humphrey, can I ask you a personal, kind of awkward question?" Kate began.

"Sure Kate," Humphrey said. "I think we're close enough as friends."

Kate thought for a second. "Okay, hang on a second." She paused and turned away so that she was not looking at Humphrey. When she was ready, she looked at him again, "What do you want in your perfect match? Like, how will you know that she's the one' whenever you find her?" _I wonder if I'll meet any of his 'standards.' I hope so! _Kate thought.

Humphrey was taken by surprise with this question. To make the situation seem less awkward, however, he started speaking. "Oh, well, I don't… I'm not sure. I mean… This sounds really stupid!" Humphrey stopped his answer.

"No!" Kate replied suddenly. "I mean, it's okay."

"Well, in that case, I guess she needs to be pretty, you know, with good eyes and nice fur. And then, she needs to be strong, and able to take care of herself when I can't do it for her. She'll need to be responsible, so that she might someday make a good mother."

Kate's eyes grew wide when Humphrey said the word "responsible." If there was anything that Kate was NOT, it was responsible. Kate was not responsible! What kind of a wolf or mother who wants the best for her family would sneak out and go to sleepovers or think her parents are idiots? Is that how Kate wanted to be when she was grown? Some crazed parent who never even thought about the consequences her actions could have on her family? Right then and there, Kate realized that she needed to change her ways. She would no longer be a kid who just did not care. Kate would care, and her future life would be better because of her change in character!

"Uh, Kate?" Humphrey asked. "You there? You look kind of zoned out."

Kate snapped back into reality and what was in front of her. "Whoa! What happened?"

"I lost you for a minute there. You went blank!" Humphrey exclaimed.

Kate shook her head trying to clear her thoughts.

"Anyway, how about I turn the question on you?" Humphrey suggested. "What do you want in your perfect guy?"

Kate could not think about anything now. There was only one thing that was on her mind: she had to start becoming more responsible! If she didn't change her ways, she and Humphrey might never be together. So why shouldn't she start now? She'd get back to her parents and apologize for all the mischief she'd ever done and try her absolute hardest to not get into it ever again! But before that, she had to tell Humphrey what she wanted in her perfect guy. She knew what it was a minute ago, but now, her mind was a black blur, allowing no thoughts to clearly form! "Well," Kate began quickly trying to think of something. "I don't know, I'd like it if he was funny, I guess. Hey, I gotta go! My parents will need me!"

"Funny eh?" Humphrey said. "Well, I'll see you later, I guess."

"Oh yeah, sure thing," Kate said as she ran off and headed back to her den. There was a lot that needed to be explained to her parents as soon as possible.

**Author's Note: Don't forget to leave one of the best gifts a writer can receive from his or her readers… A REVIEW!**

**Also, something that's really bothering me happened a few days ago. I wrote a whole story on Kate and Humphrey called A Tribute To Love because it was bothering me so much. It's in the A&O archive. You should check it out. It's just a one-shot. Thanks if you do.**

**:') **


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: DAAAHH! GUYS! I'M BACK! **

**First off, I am so sorry for my prolonged absence! I didn't want it to be like that! But school started making a wolf pile (hee hee) on me shortly after the last update. I really had to focus on my grades (especially in math and history) and before long I hardly had time to work on this story! But for now, my grades are climbing and I found some spare time today to type! Yay! You get to enjoy the fruits of that labor in chapter nine of Kate's Story! This one's REALLY kind of cute and a bit… NEVER MIND! You can just read it right now to see what I mean.**

Chapter Nine

Eve and Winston were sitting in their den talking about Kate's extreme mischief that she kept getting into. Something had to be done, and something had to be done very soon before Kate got herself or anyone else into trouble.

"Eve, I'm telling you if we can get Kate into the Alpha School semester she will learn the importance of responsibility!" Winston said.

"That's only one way," Eve responded, "and it may not be the best way."

"Well, I don't know any other way," Winston confessed. "I'm gone most of the time leading our alphas while you're here raising her. I talked to the parents of some other alpha reforms and they all say that Alpha School really will work wonders. It's worth a shot."

"You're talking like Alpha School is just an option or something. Remember that it does require students to pass the test."

"Kate will pass, I know she will," Winston said.

Just then Kate slid into her family's den to find Eve talking to Winston. Without a second to lose, Kate started talking. "Mom! Dad!" she said. "I am sorry!"

Eve and Winston just looked at Kate. "What?" they said in unison.

"I'm sorry!" Kate repeated. "I'm sorry for never caring about the consequences for my actions! I'm sorry for not being the responsible big sister to Lilly that I should've been! And I'm sorry that I've been disrespectful to you two lately."

Eve and Winston looked at each other, both with the same thought running through their minds. _This definitely went over easier than we expected,_ they thought. _Now what?_

Winston stepped up to his daughter. He was at a loss for words. "Um… The… They… You… If… We…. Glad… that… well…" Winston ceased his stuttering and turned to Eve. "Eve, help me out here!"

"Well, Kate, what Daddy is trying to say is that…" Eve stopped. She too was at a loss for words. "He's trying to say… that… we were certainly not prepared for such a quick reform! Yeah…"

Kate looked at both of her parents. _This, is awkward_, she thought.

"What she said!" Winston continued. "So! Apology accepted! Good to see you again! Anything else exciting that you wish to randomly tell us?"

"Uhhh…" Kate stopped. Should she tell her parents about Humphrey? They still did not even know she had a crush! As far as they were concerned, Kate never even socialized with guys! Telling her parents would be the overly responsible thing to do, but, it might be better for Kate to wait a little while so that she could find out just how concrete things would get with her and Humphrey. What if it was just a phase? Kate decided that she would not be so secretive about most things like she used to be. But her love life… that was an entirely different matter! It was like opening her diary and reading it to the entire pack… sort of.

"Nothing else right now," Kate concluded.

"Quite a pause you had going there," Eve noted. "Are you sure that's EVERYTHING?!"

Kate smiled showing her puppyish canine teeth. "That's all!" she said through her teeth.

* * *

Several days later, Kate found herself alone… AND WITH HUMPHREY! Things were perfect! The day was cloudy but very warm. There was a strong breeze that frequently picked up and blew back Kate's fur with enough force to drown out normal conversation. The air just felt so clean and relaxing! Everything felt great!

"Well, it's just me and you," Humphrey said with a small and somewhat nervous laugh.

"Oh yeah, I guess so," Kate said. She looked up at Humphrey and smiled awkwardly.

"What?" Humphrey asked seeing Kate's strange smile.

Kate suddenly realized what she was doing. "Oh darn! Uh… Yeah… How are you today?"

"I'm good. Lovely weather isn't it?" Humphrey decided he would play along with… whatever Kate might be doing.

"Yes, it is." Kate stared off into the distance, captivated by the motion of the trees as they swayed under the strong breeze.

"Sooooo…" Humphrey tried to change the subject. "Anything you wanna do together?"

Kate snapped out of her trance. "WHAT?! Oh. Well, I don't know, what did you want to do?"

"We could go for a walk," Humphrey started. "Well, that is, if you don't mind it being… just the two of us." Humphrey smiled.

Kate's face lit up at this suggestion. "I'd like that."

Kate and Humphrey set off. They had no idea as to where they were going or how long they would be gone. They were walking together, though, and to them that was all that mattered. The first part of the walk was a bit awkward, but gradually, Humphrey opened up to Kate and Kate eventually opened up to Humphrey. There conversations were random, but it really didn't matter. Both wolves were really starting to learn about the other.

Humphrey was finishing up a story that he had decided to share with Kate. "So then Shakey was all like 'I don't think it's safe' and of course you have Mooch saying 'Who cares?! We can eat as soon as we get to the bottom!' So we all get in the log, rush down the hill at breakneck speed and then barely survived in the end. And that was the first log sledding trip we ever had."

"Ha ha! That sounds REALLY fun!" Kate exclaimed. "You'll have to take me sometime."

"Come on, Kate! You know I will," Humphrey promised.

"I don't doubt that," Kate smiled at Humphrey.

"How about you? What do you do daily?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's different. Sometimes I have to play with my little sister, which really isn't too…"

Humphrey interrupted Kate. "Wait a second! You have a little sister?"

"Hmm?" Kate said. "Oh yeah! You didn't know that?"

Humphrey shook his head clearly clueless on the matter.

"Okay, well I have a little sister named Lilly. She's about three months younger than me."

"Is she nice?"

"Humphrey! She's so nice and sweet that my parents are both head over paws for her! They buy every little innocent thing she does! And whenever something goes wrong, guess who gets the blame."

"You?"

"Yep! Little ole me! Always blamed for whatever that little… uhh… angel does!" Kate stopped herself from making it look like she didn't like Lilly. She really did love her little sister, but there were quite a few times when Kate got annoyed because her parents seemed to favor Lilly over her.

At that second, a bolt of lightning struck across the now darkened sky. It was followed by a clap of thunder and then a sudden downpour of rain as the clouds burst open and dumped there store of water.

"Oh great! It's raining. And it's thundering. And there's lightning," Humphrey said.

Kate laughed at this. Humphrey was actually trying to be funny. "Oh no!" she sarcastically said playing along with Humphrey. "What do we do?"

When Kate finished saying this, a lightning bolt struck a tree that was only a few feet away from Humphrey.

"AAAHH!" Humphrey screamed. "Let's run!"

"Where?" Kate hesitated.

"I don't know! My den is fine!"

"I don't even know where you live!"

"Then follow me!" Humphrey said. He started to run and looked back at Kate to see if she was following him. Kate was right behind him so he turned forward to start running again but something held him where he was. He looked at Kate a second time. Her hair was standing straight up! Humphrey knew it wasn't fear, because Kate was actually laughing and looked like she was having fun. If Kate's hair was standing straight up on its ends, it could only mean that… KATE WAS ABOUT TO BE HIT BY LIGHTNING! Humphrey did not have a single millisecond to lose! His heart suddenly felt like it was ready to burst open. Humphrey felt something racing down his spinal cord, through his nerves and straight to his muscles. Instantly, Humphrey jumped to Kate and pushed her out of the way towards a tree. A quarter of a second later, a lightning bolt shot down towards Kate but then found a better path and diffused through the tree Humphrey had pushed Kate towards. Unfortunately, the tree wasn't able to absorb all of the electrical energy. A smaller lightning bolt, that really looked more like a spark, shot from the tree and singed Humphrey's tail, making it fluffier than ever.

Kate panted from the sudden shock she had just been put through… literally. "Humphrey! You just saved my life! How'd you know I was about to get hit by lightning?"

"Your hair stood straight up. Come on. Let's get back to my den before we get hit again!" Humphrey suggested.

Humphrey led the way back to his den as the storm raged on. A few minutes later, he and Kate were safely inside the small cave lined with dirt walls. Humphrey's den was small and kind of cozy.

Kate looked around. "Wait, where are your parents?"

"I'm not sure," Humphrey admitted. "They were supposed to be back days ago."

"Where did they go? Kate questioned.

"I can only wish I knew. They hardly told me anything."

"What DID they tell you?"

**Author's Note: Well… What do you think? Again, I apologize for the long absence. I'll try not to let that happen for the remainder of this story. But since I have been gone, I have a few announcements to make.**

**First, Crowwolf and I have been talking (whenever I did get a second) and we have exchanged quite a few story ideas. He has graciously allowed me to use his OC, Robert, in an upcoming chapter so be on the lookout for him.**

**Second (and this really goes with the first), I have made up an OC for Crowwolf's story on Robert. The story is called "Of Sorrow and Peace," and the OC that I made is named Kenny. He will be in Kate's Story at a later date so be on the lookout for him. Speaking of Crowwolf's story, you guys should really go check it out. As of now, I've read the intro (chapter one in the FanFic system) and the first two chapters. It's really good.**

**Third, I plan to try and get back to a daily or every few days updating system now that my grades are improving and the first grading period has officially closed for my school.**

**Fourth, a BIG thanks to everyone who has been reviewing this story! LOOOOOVVVVEEEE YOU AWESOME PEOPLE!**

**Don't forget to review, and tell me if you loved, hated, or are neutral on the latest installment to Kate's Story! **

**I'm so glad to be back! **


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: What's this?! Could it possibly be? IT IS! HERE'S CHAPTER TEN IN KATE'S STORY! (PSH! Finally, I know. :P)**

Chapter Ten

"What DID they tell you?" Kate had asked Humphrey. The two wolves were sitting in Humphrey's den as the rain poured outside and the thunder rumbled up in the sky above them.

Humphrey looked at Kate. Even the most clueless wolf would be able to tell that something was wrong with Humphrey simply by the way his eyes looked. For a moment it looked as if Humphrey would let a tear or two slip out. Quickly, he regained control of himself and prevented this. "It's nothing really!" he suddenly blurted out turning his face away from Kate. "I mean, they said they'd be back in a few days. I trust them."

Kate studied Humphrey. She did not know what to say, so she sat down, thinking in silence. Maybe she should ask Humphrey to let her in on more details. They were close friends after all, and it would be good for Humphrey to tell someone besides his goofy guy friends, wouldn't it? But what if Humphrey did not want to talk about whatever it was? What if Humphrey would not like Kate for invading his personal life? With all these possibilities at play, Kate concluded that the best thing to do right now would be to allow Humphrey to let Kate in on the topic on his own accord. That way, she could not be accused for invading too much into his personal life.

"Humphrey, do you want to talk about it?" Kate innocently asked, sounding very much like her innocent sister.

"Well…" Humphrey turned back around and thought for a second. "Perhaps a bit later. Not now, though. Definitely not now."

"Well, okay then," Kate said.

The young wolves shared a moment of awkward silence, neither one of them daring to look into the other's eyes. Before long, Kate grew highly uncomfortable and tried to break the silence. She kept trying to think of something to say, but everything that she ran through the testing center of her mind came back as stupid or not appropriate for the mood at hand (or paw).

Finally, Kate looked inconspicuously over at Humphrey. She noticed something odd out of the corner of her eye. Humphrey's tail was EXTREMELY FLUFFY! _What the heck?!_ Kate thought as her eyes grew wide with excitement. _It's so… Oh my gosh! I have to touch it! _Kate's mind began racing with random things like, _It must have been the lightning! Maybe I can think up some strange excuse to pet it! Oh gosh! The fluffiness is going to kill me, seriously! Why isn't my tail that fluffy?! Who knows?_

Kate was snapped out of her rather obsessive trance by Humphrey's words. "Um, earth to Kate. Anybody home?" Humphrey asked.

"Whoa! Wait… What?" Kate said as she focused back into reality.

"Were you staring at my tail?" Humphrey stated plainly.

Kate was busted! But she could NOT just give away her secret obsession so easily! There had to be a way out and Kate was going to find it. So she started running her mouth. "What?! Your tail? Me!? Staring at it!? PSH! AHA! NOOOOO! What makes you think that?"

"I followed your stare," Humphrey explained. "You were staring at my tail, weren't you?" he began teasing. "You were!"

"Noooooo…. I wasn't." Kate lied.

"You were," Humphrey continued with a growing smile. He knew he had Kate cornered.

"Nope. This wolf is not guilty!"

"Well, maybe we'll just hold a trial to find out."

"My dad would be the judge, and he'd lie if he had to and wouldn't tell you I was guilty."

"HA HA! YOU ARE SO GUILTY!"

"No! Innocent!"

"Guilty…" Humphrey said trailing off.

"Innocent! Innocent! Innocent!" Kate pleaded.

"Oh look! It's my tail!"

"WHERE!?" Kate immediately said. And then she realized what she had done. "Oh darn it!"

"Uh-huh," Humphrey said. "You were staring."

Kate knew she was caught, but she might still have a second chance to hide her true obsession. "Fine! Yes, I was staring at it! But it was only because it got all poofy from the lightning back there. I was wondering if it was hurt."

At that moment, Humphrey noticed the "condition" of his tail. It really was extremely fluffy, with every single hair standing up on its end. It was probably still electrified from the near encounter with the lightning bolt only a few minutes ago. Humphrey leaned back and tried to smooth it down with his tongue. Of course, he was barely even able to touch it with the tip of his nose. Kate laughed as he tried to smooth it back down. "What?" Humphrey said. "Maybe next time it will be yours. Then what?!"

Suddenly, Kate saw her chance at playing with Humphrey's tail! It was perfect! Why had she not noticed this before?! "Um, Humphrey," she began with just a hint of nervousness hidden in her voice. "I could fix it for you."

Humphrey turned and smiled at Kate. "Oh really? Thanks."

And at that moment, Kate fulfilled one of her childhood goals! Humphrey sat down in front of Kate with his tail sticking out so that Kate could smooth it down. Kate sat down directly behind Humphrey and slowly smoothed down each hair on Humphrey's tail. If Humphrey had turned around to look at Kate while she was doing this, he would have found the biggest and slightly ridiculous smile plastered onto Kate's face. Kate was fully entertained as she focused on her task. Hair after hair gradually fell into place. Humphrey's tail was indeed slightly electrified and some of the static electricity that remained transferred over into Kate's paws, giving her a small shock. _It's so insanely fluffy…_ Kate thought to herself over and over. _We should do this again sometime really soon._ Much to Kate's dismay, Humphrey's tail was soon back to normal and no longer unreasonably fluffy.

"Thanks," Humphrey said when Kate had finished.

"Oh, yeah, you're welcome," Kate replied cherishing the feeling of Humphrey's warm and fluffy tail in her paws.

"So, anyway, while you were doing that, I was thinking about what we said earlier," Humphrey began.

"And?" Kate questioned.

"Well, if you don't tell anyone, not even your parents, I'll tell you what's up with my parents. Can you promise me that?"

Kate nodded her head in solemn agreement. "Yes. I won't tell anyone without your permission."

"Okay. Here we go," Humphrey said with a hard swallow.

"My dad's name was Jason, he was a full white wolf with bright blue eyes, and my mother's name was Jayme, she was a grey wolf with dark brown eyes. They were really good parents, you know, blah blah, always wanting the best for me. In short, everything a mom or dad should be and more.

"So then one day, maybe two weeks ago, my dad comes running into our den and says, 'Jayme! Take Humphrey over to play with Salty or somewhere else safe! We gotta go now!' I haven't seen my dad since that one, very brief moment.

"Immediately, my mother just escorted me over to Salty's den and asked if I could stay over there for an hour or two. Before she ran off, she said to me 'Humphrey, be good and stay here for the next two hours. Then, you can go home until we get back. We're, umm… Just going to take a quick vacation and we'll be back in at least five days.' With that, my mother just ran off leaving me with Salty. I knew she was making something up to hide what was really going on, however. So, that's all I know about my parents. I don't know where they went and why they have not come back. But that's nothing compared to what hurts me the most: neither of them told me that they loved me before they disappeared!"

TO BE CONTINUED!

**Author's Note: So dramatic! HAHA! Not really. Anyway, I have a special thanks that I extend to AaOWaSaCD4ever for suggesting the idea of Kate creating a way to get into touching Humphrey's fluffy tail. Thank you very much! :D**

**Sorry this update took so long. I will be trying harder to find more writing time for you guys. So be on the lookout for more installments. And if you think I'm taking too long, just let me know via PM and I'll speed it up if at all possible. I hate making you guys wait so long as I have been. I am truly sorry! :-( **

**So if you don't mind, you could leave a review. Just a suggestion and I highly appreciate it if you take it. Reviews make the story… Or at least the writer's day. One, or the other, or both. They make my day, and they do encourage me to keep writing! Thanks guys. Wait… Did that just say "Thanks guys?" I mean, "Thank you to my wonderfully amazing readers who like this story enough to keep reading it because they are so awesome!" Yeah. Review please!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: Another chapter in Kate's Story! It's a little short, but it is a bit of a filler. Read up!**

Chapter Eleven

The continuous rain outside fit the mood Kate was in. Humphrey's story had touched her. She never would have thought that Humphrey's parents, or any of her friends' parents for that matter, would just disappear one day. It was really sad. If Humphrey's parents had said they were coming back in five days and they had been gone now for two weeks, who knew when they would return! Kate never did like sad moments, but she knew that it was good in the long run for Humphrey to tell that story to someone rather than just keep it to himself.

"So, yeah, I don't know what happened and I really wish they'd come back. But they're not coming back for a while, from the looks of it," Humphrey concluded.

"I'm so sorry, Humphrey," Kate said trying to be sympathetic for Humphrey.

"Well, yeah, don't be too sorry," Humphrey tried to bring up the mood. "I can take care of myself… I think."

A rather large and bright lightning bolt suddenly shot down from the sky and struck the ground just outside of the cave, vanishing with a loud clap of thunder that rattled the den Humphrey was in. Kate and Humphrey both jumped as soon as this happened.

"Wow! It's… ahh… still raining," Kate yawned. She was getting very sleepy. Her eyes grew heavy and things started to scramble up and not make sense. Kate was falling asleep.

It had been raining for a very long time. The sun had now set leaving the storm to rage on into the night hours.

Humphrey looked over at Kate, who was slowly falling into the world of sleep. "Uh, Kate, it might not be a good idea for you to just…" It was useless. Kate was now fast asleep with the sound of the rain soothing her tired body. And then, Humphrey noticed that she looked really, kind of… CUTE. Her body was curled up into a little ball with her nose pushed into her tail fur for warmth. She looked quite comfortable, but maybe she was just a bit cold with the new cold air that was flowing in behind the storm. Humphrey walked up to Kate, trying to think of a way to make her warmer.

Kate was just about to lose her sense of reality as she fell into sleep. Suddenly, she felt reasonably warmer. She opened one eye and found that Humphrey was lying behind her with his back pressed up against hers. _Oh my gosh! _Kate thought excitedly. _We're actually, kind of, maybe SNUGGLING! Wait till I tell Carly and the other girls about this! Oh! He's so warm… This had better be one long night._ Kate fell asleep with these happy thoughts on her mind and Humphrey's warm back pressed up against hers.

The next morning, Kate awoke early with a sudden start. She had slept the whole night in Humphrey's den! That was one of the best things that had happened to her in her rather short life. Suddenly, she realized what her parents might think of her full night absence! Kate jumped up from the floor of Humphrey's den and quickly ran over to her parents' den. She had to get home quickly!

Kate entered her parents' den with extreme caution. It was still really early in the morning, before the sun had come up to be more descriptive. Maybe her parents were still asleep. Kate looked over to where her parents normally slept. Both of them were actually sound asleep. She would just go back to sleep for a little bit and say she was out late last night. This was not all that great with her recent promise to be more responsible, however, but it seemed like the best option for the well-being of her friendship with Humphrey. Kate lied down on her own bedded area and fell asleep again.

About an hour later, Kate woke up again. She looked over to where her parents were sleeping and saw that they too had just woken up. Reluctantly, Kate walked over to them to see if they were mad at her for being gone too late.

"Good morning Mom and Dad," Kate greeted them.

"Good morning Kate," Eve responded sweetly. Her mood quickly swung over to her motherly mood as she questioned abruptly, "Where were you last night?"

"Oh… Me? I was just out a little later than I planned to be, that's all," Kate said stretching out the truth.

"Okay, great, but where was this place that you were out at?" Eve continued her search for an answer.

"Umm…" Kate thought for a second on what to say. "Well, I was just with my friends. We played outside before the storm hit. That's why I got in so late. I didn't want to strike out in the raging storm all by myself, you know." Kate was really stretching the truth here. She really was out with a friend, who we must mention Eve and Winston did not know she had, and she really did get in "late" because of the storm.

"Okay, I guess I'll buy that," Eve reluctantly admitted. She did not fully believe Kate but she wasn't ready to start a big argument with her.

Kate sighed with relief. She was really going to have to keep from getting in these difficult situations. That way, she would be able to fulfill her new motive of being a bit more responsible. For now, however, she had just escaped another wave of anger or punishments from her parents by stretching the truth just a tiny bit. For now, she was safe.

**Author's Note: Kate may not be as responsible as she had hoped to be just yet. Uh oh!**

**In other news, the poll on your favorite A&O characters is now closed. Here are the results if you don't want to look at them on my profile page.**

**We have a tie between Humphrey and Kate: each of them received ten votes.**

**Lilly comes in second receiving six votes.**

**Garth comes in third, receiving a total of three votes.**

**We have Eve just behind Garth. She has a total of two votes.**

**And finally, Winston received on vote.**

**Of course, you're welcome to go look at the poll yourself to get a better percentage idea and to see how many people actually voted. It's closed, but still up on my profile page! Thanks for voting.**

**For now, I'm thinking the next few chapters should get us into some Alpha School business. That will be interesting.**

**Also, I have to OCs that I have accepted from other users and will be using in the Alpha School chapters. If you have an OC that you would like to see in the Alpha School as an extra or maybe as one of Kate's new friends, you know the drill, just send me a PM.**

**Thank you and please review, like you always do! Wait, I think I used that one before. Oh well. It can go another round.**

**REVIEW! :D**


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note: I hope I didn't weird anybody out too much with that recent Halloween story. Anyway, this is chapter twelve in Kate's Story. I want chapter thirteen to come pretty much immediately after chapter twelve, thus I am typing it now. It should be up within two hours of this one.**

Chapter Twelve

The next few weeks rushed by as far as Kate was concerned. She continued to hang out with Humphrey, of course, as well as her other friends Carly and Nicki. One day, when Lilly was out playing with a few of her other friends, Kate decided to talk to her parents a bit. She had finally decided that she could not go any longer having Humphrey as a bit of a "secret" friend. The only problem was, how does she tell her parents that she has been good friends with a young male wolf for the past month or two? This would not go over easily.

"Mom and Dad?" Kate asked. "I really need to tell you something that I should have told you a long time ago."

Eve had her attention refocused onto Kate in half a heartbeat. "What is it?" she said with a tone that communicated annoyance on the fact that she might be uninformed of something rather important.

Winston focused his attention on Kate as well. He sensed her nervousness and tried to ease her mood. "It's okay, Kate. You can tell us ANYTHING!"

With a deep breath in, Kate began. "Well, back when I kind of snuck out to that sleepover a month or so ago, I met someone. And I didn't just meet any someone, I met a guy."

"KATE!" Eve blurted out, "IF YOU TELL ME YOU HAVE BEEN DATING BEHIND OUR BACKS I WILL…"

"EVE! Please!" Winston calmed his mate down. "What about this guy?" he continued. One of the good things about being married to Eve was that he never had to personally get angry or freak out over a matter; Eve always did it for him.

"Well, we're really good friends, and that's all right now." Kate confessed.

Eve turned her head a bit to the side and frowned. "What's his name?" she said with concealed anger lurking in her voice.

Kate smiled nervously, knowing that she was losing good terms with her mother. "Humphrey…" she trailed off.

"OH! Humphrey…" Winston said half to himself. "Yes, I know about Humphrey."

Kate's interest was sparked. "Do you know what happened to his parents?!"

Winston started at Kate's sudden outburst. She was Eve's daughter just as much as she was his, and thus she had characteristics from both parents. "Whoa! Hold on! First of all, it's really none of your business. Second, they're not your parents so you don't really have much of a right to know!"

"But Daddy…" Kate protested. "Humphrey doesn't even know what happened to them! He deserves to know!"

Winston suddenly got very angry. "Kate! Humphrey's parents know what happened and they don't want Humphrey to know the danger… uh, ISSUES that they were dealing with! It's for his own personal safety!"

Naturally, Kate was taken aback by the fact that her father would get so angry with her so easily. "Why?" she asked trying to act innocent.

Winston took a breath in to calm him down. "I'm sorry, Kate, but it really does not concern you. You're only a puppy, and this is one thing that's actually bigger than you." _And I really wish I hadn't mentioned his parents aloud!_ Winston discussed inwardly with himself.

With a shrug, Kate let the matter roll of her shoulders… at least for the time being. "Alright, Dad. If you say so. I'm, uh, gonna go play with Lilly now." Kate started to leave her parents' presence, but she was closely followed by Eve until the two females were out of the hearing range of Winston.

"Oh Kate, darling," Eve suddenly spoke up surprising Kate.

"OH! Mom, what are you doing here?" Kate exclaimed startled that she hadn't heard her mother.

"Just a few more questions I could not ask while your father was having his 'moment' back there," Eve admitted.

_Well, looks like I'm up for another round of Interviews With Mom. Wonderful!_ Kate sarcastically thought. "Sure, go ahead," she said aloud and with a toothy smile.

"Do you have a crush on Humphrey?" Eve asked hopping straight to the point.

Smile dropping and eyes widening, Kate tried to think of something to say. "Um… Uhhh…"

"Well there's my answer! If you weren't stuttering, it would have been negative. Since you are stuttering, you're thinking about whether you should or should not tell me the truth. Is this incorrect?"

Now Kate was cornered. Why did her mom have to be so dang smart? It must be a natural thing for a pack leader since occasionally the pack leaders would serve as a judge if a wolf committed a crime within the pack. Nevertheless, Kate quickly processed all of her options. She could tell the truth, or she could lie and probably end up telling the truth later anyway. With her promise to be more responsible at steak, Kate was forced to tell the complete and entire truth. But not before taking a deep breath, of course.

"Well," Kate began, "honestly, yes. I think I have a crush on Humphrey. BUT DON'T TELL ANYONE!" Kate nearly yelled this at her mother.

Eve smiled. Things were finally going her way and it seemed as if she would be successful in getting information. "Have you told him your feelings?"

"Well, no. I mean, Carly said that boys think girls are gross until they get older."

"That's only part of the truth," Eve began. "You see, boys think girls are gross only when they're with their friends. If you can get them alone, they'll be so much nicer to you and may even call you something like 'pretty,' or 'beautiful.' So, have you ever been with Humphrey alone?"

A huge smile highlighted Kate's face when her mother said this. "Yes, we've had several times when we've found ourselves alone."

Eve nearly jumped at this. "HAS HE DONE ANYTHING TO HURT OR ABUSE YOU IN ANY WAY?!"

"AHH!" screamed Kate at yet another one of her mother's sudden outbursts. "Oh, no, Mom! Humphrey's one of the nicest, sweetest guys I know… OOPS!"

Eve exploded again when she heard this. "WHAT?! AND JUST HOW MANY GUYS DO YOU KNOW?!"

"MOM! CHILL!" Kate said. "Humphrey… has a few friends, so I know a few of them. But we don't really hang out much unless Carly, Nicki, Reba and Janice are in the group as well."

Instantaneously, Eve's mood switched over to her little happy one that follows most of her outbursts. "Okay dear. You go have fun with Lilly. Just come back early so you can grab a good night's rest. Your first Alpha School Administration Test is tomorrow. Bye." And with that, Eve walked off back to the den.

Kate sighed. Her interview with her mother was at last over, and not a moment too soon. And now she just had to… WAIT A SECOND! The ASAT was tomorrow?! This could not be happening! Not now, it was too soon! What if Humphrey passed and she did not? Worse! What if she passed and Humphrey did not?! Kate's friendship with Humphrey was at a complete risk! Something had to be done!

**Author's Note: NEXT CHAPTER: ALPHA SCHOOL TESTING IS FINALLY HERE! Things are really going to start picking up for Kate! I highly suggest you stay tuned. In the meantime, this is the final call for any OCs that you would like to see in this Alpha School semester! OCs will continue to be accepted up until the release of chapter fourteen. After that, I will still gladly take OCs, but I'm afraid they will have to be seen about at a much later date in the story. So, if you have an OC that you would like to see in the Alpha School class with Kate, gather 'em up and PM them too me! LOL! Okay, that's all. Let me get chapter thirteen up because it really goes along with this chapter and I want to start speeding things up.**

**Also, the poll on your favorite character is fixing to be taken down. I'm gonna get another one up there.**

**So there are three things to remember here: OCs PM-ed, new poll going up soon, and of course, you should consider opening the link encoded in the review button (or box) provided below! I like it when you guys do that! Thanks guys! I owe you one! How about another chapter?**


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note: Chapter Thirteen is here! Get excited simply because you can! :-) Have fun reading!**

Chapter Thirteen

(Thirteen… Dun dun duuuuunnnn!)

Kate found herself in the middle of the Western Pack's main valley bright and early the next late fall morning just an hour after the sun had officially risen. She could not believe that this was finally happening! If she passed the test today, she would be in Alpha School within a few weeks! That really was not too bad when observed alone. When the fact that she may be leaving most if not all of her friends behind was factored into the equation, however, things started to look really rough! A whole new chapter in Kate's Story was about to begin whether Kate approved of it or not!

Humphrey came up and sat next to Kate. Only moments later, Carly, Nicki, Reba, and Janice came up to the two and sat next to them as well. Kate had five friends that would be taking the test at the same time that she was. She could now only hope that every one of them would pass with her. Then again, when she reconsidered, maybe none of them would pass and their lives would remain normal throughout the approaching winter since they would not have to worry about the matter again until early spring.

Just then, Kate looked over at Carly. Carly had been making weird faces at Kate for the past few seconds in an attempt to attract her attention. Now that she had accomplished her goal, she mouthed the words "Cute crush," to Kate simply to tease her. Kate rolled her eyes, simply thankful that Humphrey did not see what was going on practically behind his back.

"This is so exciting!" Carly finally said aloud! "Show of paws! Who hopes they pass TODAY!?"

Everyone but Kate raised their paw.

"What?! Kate! Come on! Don't you wanna show those caribou who's boss?!" Humphrey tried to encourage.

"OH! Yeah! Of course I want to! I just don't want some of us to not pass today and others end up passing with no problem. We'd be split up for our first winter," Kate stated her thoughts.

"I see your point," Humphrey related to Kate. "If I pass today, I'll be leaving Mooch, Salty and Shakey behind. I don't know what I'll do without those guys!"

"Wait! You mean they're not taking the test?" Nicki asked. "Why not?"

"It's really kind of obvious," Humphrey explained. "They enjoy being a bunch of clowns, you know, doing nothing all day but having fun. They don't want that taken away from them."

"Then why are you here?" Kate asked.

"Because I've always wanted to be something more than what I am right now," Humphrey admitted.

Kate's heart was touched when Humphrey said this. _You never have to be anything more than you Humphrey, because that's why I love you_. She wished she could say outside of her thoughts. Unfortunately, she had not told Humphrey her true feelings, and it did not look like he was going to make a move anytime soon.

Interrupting the moment that Kate was having with herself, Winston suddenly howled to call everyone to attention. "Welcome to the ASAT for the upcoming winter semester of Alpha School!" he announced, projecting his voice like only a leader can do. "I would like to introduce the she-wolf that will be in charge of everything here, besides me of course." The pack laughed when Winston dropped in this playful line. Smiling, Winston continued, "Please give your warm Western Pack welcome to the head Alpha School instructor Crystal!"

A dark blonde wolf walked up to the rock that Winston had been addressing the group from. Greeted with howls and cheers from all the wolves, she had yellow eyes and her left front paw was all black. Crystal seemed very… excited to be up on the makeshift stage... maybe even a little 'over the top' excited.

"What up Western Pack?!" she screamed. "If you're ready to get this show on the road, let me here you howl!"

Several howls rose up from the crowd yet again and eventually died down to let her continue speaking.

"What we've got for you today is a traditional ASAT," Crystal explained. "A few wolves are distributing your bark slates now which have your multiple choice quizzes on them. All you have to do, is use a mud and water mixture, which we're also passing around, to check off your answers and then place your paw print at the top right paw corner of the slate. A few things about the quiz: NO CHEATING! And it's mostly just a common sense test, so there won't be a big question that requires post Alpha School knowledge or anything like that. So, good luck! When you're finished, just bring your slate up to the front and we'll move you on to the physical test, located at the other end of the valley."

Humphrey, Kate, Reba, Janice, Carly, and Nicki all looked at each other. They were each thinking the same thing: Crystal seemed like a fun teacher who might have a bit of hyperactivity issues. This should prove interesting.

"Are you guys ready to ace this sucker?" Humphrey asked as he took a bark slate from a stack and then passed the stack down.

Kate looked at Humphrey and grinned. "Are you?!" she returned the question.

"Oh yeah! Ready!" Humphrey said.

And with that, the Western Pack wolves took the only written test that they would ever take in their lives. It was followed by each of them taking the physical test one by one. When everyone had filed through, they were handed their score sheets, which contained their final score and a "yes" or a "no" circled as to whether they made it into Alpha School or not.

Kate, Humphrey, Reba, Janice, Carly, and Nicki all held their bark slates in front of them once the test was over. They all had their eyes closed so they could not see the results.

"Okay guys. On three, we open our eyes," Humphrey instructed. "One…"

"Two…" Kate said.

"THREE!" all six wolves yelled.

For some of them, the answers were a bit surprising!

**Author's Note: Two chapters in one day?! I did this before… Once upon a time… HAHA! Anyway, we have all six wolves successfully completing the test! But how successful were they? Looks like you'll have to find out in the next chapter! Sorry about that, but maybe you can be nice since I gave you two chapters in one day… Just maybe? Please? Okay. You decide.**

**Before I go, I need to note that Crystal is not actually my OC. She was submitted by AaOWaSaCD4ever for the Alpha School instructor. I think we can really have fun with her in the next few chapters. We'll see how that works! Thank you AaOWaSaCD4ever for providing Crystal! She's a cool character! (By the way AaOWaSaCD4ever, don't worry. I will be developing more of Crystal in upcoming chapters, if she seems a little shallow right now. Also, I hope you liked the interpretation of her. :D)**

**Please REVIEW guys! Thanks for reading! Remember, this is the last call for OCs!**

**Also, a new poll is out. Just a bit of a survey on what you like or want in my writings. Check it out on my profile page!  
**

**This chapter was provided for the entertainment of my wonderful readers. Why? Because you are wonderful! :D**


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note: Well, here you go! The results for the ASAT are in and waiting for you to read (*cough* and review if you wish).**

Chapter Fourteen

The six young wolves looked at their results, anxious to see where the next few months of their lives may or may not take them. Half of the wolves present were smiling, while the other half had a confused and somewhat hurt look on their faces.

"Well, it looks like, um, I PASSED!" Kate yelled out.

"Hey, so did I!" Nicki exclaimed.

"Yeah, me too!" Carly shouted. "What up girl?" Carly then gave Nicki a wolf paw bump that was similar to a human's fist bump.

"What did you get, Humphrey?" Kate asked her secret crush.

"Well, Reba and I did NOT pass. Oh well. Guess we'll just be omegas or do something at the next ASAT meet." Janice interrupted Kate's conversation.

Janice and Reba walked away, probably heading back to their dens. Carly and Nicki started to leave, but just before they walked away Carly whispered to Kate, "We'll leave you two 'future alphas' alone," and then she winked at her before leaving the valley.

"Humphrey?" Kate asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"Um, well, it was just a stupid test! Not like it pretty much sets up or tears down my life or anything," Humphrey tried to reason. "Oh wait…"

"So you did not pass or you did? I'm trying to figure out what's going on," Kate said sweetly.

"Well… Can I meet you later tonight?" Humphrey suddenly asked.

"Sure thing, but why?" Kate asked.

"Well, you'll understand then. So yeah, I'll see you later!" Humphrey tried to cheer up about the whole matter and then dashed off towards his den.

"You can always tell me if something is wrong," Kate whispered as she watched the young Humphrey run off taking his bark slate with him. Then Kate picked up her own bark slate and headed back to her own den.

Kate walked into her den and found that Lilly was in their alone, lying on the cold, hard stone and dirt floor of their den, not bothering to get up and lie on her bed. Setting her bark slate with the results that would change her life aside, Kate approached her younger sister and sat in front of her. "Hey Lills," she said. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

A small sob escaped from Lilly. "Hmm?" she asked, tuning into conversation with Kate as she lifted her head off of the ground. "Oh! They're still down at the ASAT thing." Under her breath so that Kate could barely hear it, Lilly whispered, "The STUPID ASAT thing!"

"Oh, okay," Kate concluded. Then she noticed that Lilly was not too happy. She started her interrogation slowly. "So, did you take the test? I didn't see you down there."

"Yeah… I took it. Yep!" Lilly responded with disdain.

"Is something wrong, Lilly?" Kate said, using the same question that she had used for Humphrey earlier.

"Well, if you want me to, I'll tell you." Lilly began.

"I want you to, Lills! You're my sister!" Kate said.

"'Lills?'" Lilly asked.

"Yeah, it's your new nickname! Do you like it? I thought of it a few days ago." Kate explained.

Lilly smiled at her sister's thoughtfulness. "It's kind of cute," she said. And then, with a bit of a sigh, Lilly started to tell Kate what was wrong.

"Kate, there's just so much wrong with me! I failed miserably at that stupid physical part of the test!"

"What did you score?" Kate interrupted.

"A sixty-five," Lilly said sadly.

"But Lilly, there's always next time!" Kate encouraged.

"No, Kate. I looked like such a clueless loser out there that I don't think I can ever have anything to do with that test ever again! It was bad! VERY BAD! So, I'm done with trying to be an alpha. I'll be just fine as little Omega Lilly."

"Well, I really don't want to push you into anything, but there are three chances at the test for a reason. Don't you think you could try again? Maybe at least once?"

"Kate, you did not see me. This was the most humiliating thing that has ever happened to me! It was BAAAADDD!" Lilly repeated.

"Well if you would rather be an omega, then I guess…" Kate was interrupted by Lilly.

"No, I just don't think I'm cut out for being an alpha. I think I'd rather be an omega anyway."

"Okay. But is there anything else that's bothering you?"

Lilly stared at Kate for a few seconds in silence. Then, she slowly nodded her head and said, "Yes, there is definitely something else. I really wish I was more like you!"

"Oh, but Lilly, it's really…" Kate was yet again cutoff by Lilly.

"No, just let me explain. I don't have but hardly any friends! I'm just so shy! I mean, I love to meet new people, but I never know what to say. But you have a whole bunch of friends! You always know what to say and you are definitely not shy! You've even got your own crush!"

Kate smiled when Lilly mentioned Humphrey, her crush. "Lilly, I have these things because…"

"Because Mom LETS you outside of her sight! Kate, whenever I want to go do something, she does not let me. She'll say it's too dangerous or I can go if I get a friend to go with me. And we both know where that puts me, since I HAVE no friends."

"Lilly, I could introduce you to some of my friends. Maybe they'll know someone that would be a really good friend to you!"

"It's a nice offer, but I don't think it would work."

"Why not?"

"I'm just not good with any wolves! That's all. I don't even have a guy that likes me. Mom probably told you this, but I tried to hang out with Humphrey's friends the other day and ended up running away because I was just so scared to be around them."

Kate's eyes widened when Lilly mentioned this. She was already being taken by surprise that all of these things bothered Lilly, but when she found out that she had tried to hang around HUMPHREY'S FRIENDS in order to improve her social skills, she really got worried! "You tried hanging around those guys? No wonder you were so scared! Lilly, Humphrey's friends are just… Well… they're just goofy. They think everything is funny or a game and they really don't know how to behave around girls yet. But Humphrey is different! And that's what I like about him."

Kate did not know it, but she had just opened up something else for Lilly to be unhappy about. "Face it, Kate, I won't ever get someone to love me. Never! I'm too shy." Lilly said laying her head on the ground.

"You know what, Lills? One day, the right guy is actually going to walk up to you! Whether you recognize it or not is entirely up to you and you alone! Trust me, Lills, you will find the right guy sooner or later, and I have a feeling that it won't be in a way you would normally expect."

As she tried to imagine her dream guy, Lilly smiled a smile that had both pain and a trickle of happiness contained in it. "I really hope you're right," she said.

"I love you, Lilly. It may not always seem that way, but I really do!" Kate confessed.

Lilly smiled, tears just now starting to come from her eyes. "You're the best sister ever Kate! You really are! I love you too!" Lilly sat up and hugged Kate, with some of her tears falling onto her sister's neck. "I love you too," Lilly repeated in a slower whisper.

**Author's Note: Kind of a sweet chapter between Lilly and Kate, right? Just a bit? Let me know in a review!**

**Next chapter (which I hope will be typed tonight and finalized so that it can be out in a day or two): Humphrey and Kate have to make a few life changing decisions. And they're gonna talk about… Okay, I know I'm not giving away anymore! You'll see VERY SOON!**

**Don't forget that there is a poll open on my profile page and of course that reviews are always appreciated. You guys should see my face whenever I see a new review coming in; it's priceless!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note: Well, this one is a bit sadder. I highly recommend The One That Got Away to be playing in the background when I give you the cue later in the chapter. The song is by Katy Perry. Here's the link. You know the drill by now; type in "youtube" then ".com" with no spaces and paste what shows up of the link at the end. watch?v=fDTouU0iABA **

**Enjoy!  
**

Chapter Fifteen

Later that evening, Kate found herself sitting in her family's den, idly passing the time by flicking a leaf from her left paw to her right paw and then back again. She was so engrossed in her own thoughts about what might be troubling Humphrey that the entire world seemed nonexistent to her. As a result of all this, Kate nearly jumped when Winston approached her and asked if everything was alright. "Oh, I'm fine," Kate had said, "it's just that I'm supposed to meet Humphrey in a few minutes."

Puzzled, Winston asked, "Why didn't you tell us about this? We need to know where you're going!"

"I'm sorry, Daddy," Kate pleaded, "but you have to understand that something is really wrong with Humphrey and I've been thinking about it all day and cannot take my mind away from it. I have been sitting here messing with this leaf ever since you and Mom got back."

Eve perked up at this. "You've been messing with that one leaf for THAT LONG?!" she exclaimed with her eyes open wide like a wolf's mouth when it was hungry. "Kate, you go get things settled with Humphrey right now!" Eve paused, looked at her daughter with a worried look, and then resumed. "Especially since you can't do anything else until you do! Go on! Find out what's up with him!"

A smile lit up Kate's face as she started to exit the den. Unfortunately, Winston stopped her. He had a… "word of advice" for his daughter.

"Kate, come here," Winston began. When Kate had walked back up to him and sat down, he continued. "I'm going to go ahead and break it down for you right here and right now. It's very important for you to know."

Kate shrugged. She had absolutely no idea that Winston was about to interfere with any future plans she might be forming in her mind. "Okay. Let me have it!"

Naturally, Winston grinned at his daughter's enthusiasm. "Well, to cut straight to the point, Humphrey did not pass his test. You and he are both old enough now to be classified as an alpha or an omega. Since you passed your test, you are an alpha in training. Humphrey did not pass the test so this makes him an omega. Of course, he can try again to become an alpha sooner or later or he can choose to remain an omega. Do you see what I mean?"

Kate had just received a load of information that she only knew existed when she occasionally happened to hear her parents talking about ranks and training, and that had only happened a few times. She thought she understood everything that her father had laid out for her, so she nodded her head and gave a cheerful "Yes, I understand," for an answer. "Is that all? Can I go see Humphrey now?!"

"Just ONE more thing," Winston said. He made this 'one more thing' sound VERY important, like it was something Kate should not miss. "Alphas and omegas cannot and will not ever become mates. Have fun with Humphrey!" Winston turned around with this final saying and headed deeper into the den.

Kate was devastated! She honestly had never thought of this! But how could she have missed this? It was so obvious! Her parents were mates, but they were both alphas! It was the same with any other couple she knew! Both of the wolves were either an alpha and alpha or an omega and omega couple! This meant that she and Humphrey would not be together as long as she remained an alpha and he remained an omega! What could she do?

Despite the fact that Humphrey had never set up a meeting place with Kate, Kate managed to cross paths with her sweet crush just outside of his den under a bright full moon lit sky. Humphrey's eyes met Kate's eyes and they each shared a look of hurt; somehow they both knew that the other had discovered something life changing.

"Hi Kate," Humphrey said with a desperate attempt to slap a smile on his face.

"Hey there Humphrey," Kate replied sadly. She was so devastated that she didn't look Humphrey directly in his eyes this time.

"Well, cutting to the pointy point, I failed the ASAT." Humphrey admitted. "I passed the physical skills with excellent skill, but the knowledge test… that was a nightmare!"

"Was it really that bad?" Kate asked staring straight at the ground now.

"Kate! I just can't do tests like that! I knew the answers to them all, but they just wouldn't come!" Humphrey reasoned. "The one that asked about who eats first after a kill, I put down 'The ants!'"

Kate managed to bring her eyes to Humphrey's eyes at the mention of this rather stupid answer. "Was that even a choice?" she quickly questioned.

"Yes. It was choice 'c,' I think," Humphrey answered.

"Oh, I didn't even see that one. You do know it's the alphas that eat first, right?" Kate asked half wanting to see if Humphrey knew the correct answer and the other half wanting to assure herself that Humphrey was not some clueless wolf.

"I know that's the answer! I just cannot do it on the tests! If you ask me any question on the ASAT but don't tell me that it determines my future, I'll be perfectly fine!"

"It's really okay, Humphrey. They let you take it three times. What did you score on the test anyway?"

"I landed a ninety-eight on the physical test and a… a…. uhhh…"

"You can tell me, Humphrey. If you don't want me to, I won't tell a living soul!" Kate promised.

"A fifty… A fifty…"

"A fifty?"

"A fifty-five."

Kate was a bit shocked that Humphrey's test anxiety was this bad. He did not seem like the type of wolf that would get nervous over a few questions on a piece of wood. Or maybe… he was just that type.

"Anyway, I'm going to be an omega. I will be perfectly happy with that and won't ever have to worry about taking a stupid test ever again! I'll just have fun all day and live life to its fullest! Sound good to you?" Humphrey looked over at Kate, who had her eyes locked on the ground again. "Kate?" he asked trying to see if Kate was sealed into some sort of trance.

"Hmmm? Oh! That's pretty…" And then Kate realized what Humphrey had just said. She shook her head violently a few times, trying to rid her ears of the sounds she had just heard. Humphrey just admitted that he wanted to be an omega! But… Why? Kate was fully overcome by this. She fully laid her body and head down onto the cold, hard ground and started to cry. It was all just too much for one day! The whole Alpha School thing that would split up her and her friends… Lilly basically thinking she was worthless and not good…. Finding out the rather obvious fact that alphas could not be mates with omegas… And now… Now… Now Kate was about to have her relationship with Humphrey completely ripped apart! But then, did it really matter? Did anything matter between her and Humphrey? For all she knew, Humphrey might think of Kate as nothing more than a friend to play with and talk to when he needed something to do. Nothing made sense to Kate at this moment, and it didn't look like anything was going to "magically change" anytime soon.

**(A/N: If you're using the music, right about here is a good place to start.)**

"Kate?" Humphrey asked. He laid himself down next to Kate so that his face was at an angle with hers, an angle large enough so that he could see her eyelids. Her eyelids were hiding her gorgeous, golden brown eyes. There were tears escaping from those eyelids right then and there.

Kate tried to compose herself so that she would not look like some wimp in front of Humphrey. He probably thought that it was a girly thing to cry anyway. She could not have that image of herself in Humphrey's mind! But Kate did not know how wrong she was at guessing Humphrey's potential thoughts.

"Kate, what's wrong? I told you what was wrong with me, will you share your problem?" Humphrey tried to reason with her.

When Humphrey brought this up, Kate suddenly realized that she could not possibly tell Humphrey her true problem. It just would not work! If she told Humphrey, she would be saying that she was bothered by alphas not being able to become mates with omegas. This would lead to Humphrey possibly figuring out that she was in love with a rank opposite of hers. Once Humphrey figured that out, he would see that really the only explainable example would be Kate loving him. Kate could not have this because she could not tell Humphrey that she was in love with him because of the law on ranks. If Kate decided to inform Humphrey on her true love for him, she would plant a seed in his heart. That seed would leave Humphrey wondering if there was a way to get to Kate outside of the law. Of course, Kate's parents would notice this happening and would never approve of the situation. Kate was caught in a continuous loop around the law on ranks and the fact that Humphrey had never found out about her love for him! It was just not going to work now. It was over! Humphrey and Kate would never be together.

Humphrey had been puzzling over Kate's blank look as she thought of all this. "Kate, are you there?" he asked.

Suddenly, Kate realized that she had sunk into a trance. She snapped out of it and back into the rather disappointing situation at hand. She and Humphrey both jumped back to their feet. "What?" Kate exclaimed, adjusting back to the real world.

"Just tell me what's wrong. You can tell me anything. We're…" Humphrey was not quite sure that he should say the next thing, but then again, why shouldn't he? "Well, we're best friends."

On the inside, Kate was still crying her fragile heart out. On the outside, Kate managed to smile at Humphrey. If she could not have Humphrey as her boyfriend or mate, she would just have to settle into being best friends. There was no law against friendship. "Humphrey, it's just that I'm gonna have to go to Alpha School now that I passed the ASAT. That means we won't see each other for a while. I'm going to miss you…" Kate trailed off and then added in a whisper that Humphrey barely managed to hear, "…so, so much."

Surprisingly, Humphrey reached out and wrapped his arms around Kate in a tight and long hug. The two wolves just stood there, wrapped around each other in a hug, underneath the bright moon and dark, night sky full of twinkling stars. Kate could only wish that it was more than a best friend to best friend hug. A tear ran out of her eye and splashed down onto Humphrey's back when she thought of this. And then, she could not resist it anymore. She gave Humphrey a light and small kiss on the back of his neck. It was a small one, but it was still a kiss. Like the hug, Kate wished this was more than a best friend gently kissing another best friend. But then again, she was just overjoyed over the fact that she had kissed him and then he had hugged her!

Humphrey felt the tear land on his back, which was followed by Kate's quick kiss. Although she did not actually see it, Humphrey smiled the biggest smile in the world when Kate kissed him. Kate's face was close to pushing into his soft, earthy smelling fur, but she resisted. "Shh… Don't cry, Kate," he comforted in a soothing voice. "We'll see each other again. It's not forever."

_I wish the only problem was we wouldn't be seeing each other for a while_, Kate thought. "I know," she said aloud, "it's just going to be hard."

"Well, I guess we'd better get back to our dens," Humphrey said after he broke the long hug.

"I guess I'll just have to let you go away from me now," Kate smiled at Humphrey. "It might be different in another life, but not here."

"Yeah. Maybe…" Humphrey agreed, puzzling over Kate's statement. "So wait, when do you leave for Alpha School?" he quickly diverted the conversation.

Kate's face grew sad at this. "Next week," she answered simply.

"Alright, then. I guess, uh, I'll see you around," Humphrey began heading back to his den.

"Sure thing," Kate said with a bit of a sniffle. When Humphrey was finally out of hearing range, she whispered, "I'll cherish every moment with you until then."

**Author's Note: Also, I wanted to use this chapter as a test to see what my readers really think of the writing and how it makes them feel. So I have a special thanks extending to:**

**Crowwolf  
**

**Elete12  
**

**The Idealist 10.6  
**

**LoyalWolfHumphrey  
**

**and AaOWaSaCD4ever  
**

**for volunteering to do this. I had a banner in my profile with this request. I am thankful to these people for doing it! Thanks again guys!  
**

**Also, the kiss that Kate gave Humphrey was suggested by AaOWaSaCD4ever. The Idealist suggested I edit the big chunk of words where I talked about the law keeping Kate from telling Humphrey her feelings.  
**

**Please review! (And don't worry, I have the opening scene in the movie buried in my mind and I do have a way to work into it. But if you do think I may be on the road to forgetting something, PLEASE PM ME ASAP!)  
**

**Remember to review! Thank ya thank ya thank ya! :D  
**


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note: Guys! I'm back! So sorry for the longer update than usual! I've been really busy lately! Blah blah blah social life! Blah blah blah! School! Blah blah blah! Yard work! Blah blah blah! Errands to run! Haha! That's a scene from the Fairly Oddparents for those of you who don't know. I just adapted it to my life. Anyway, I was busy doing all the things listed above. It was kind of like this: school all morning and early afternoon and then straight to the yard to do yard work. If I wasn't doing yard work, it was house work or running an errand or working on homework. Not fun, and it zapped all my energy and time for writing. But it finally is Thanksgiving so I've got some time! Of course, there is a chance that I might be headed out of town to visit some family that I haven't seen in forever and won't get to see for a long time after! I really hope that works out and if it does, I will be brining my computer and possibly typing a chapter in the car or in bed late at night or early in the morning or all of the above! Well… you know… usual method for me. xP Blah blah blah my plans! Sorry, I'm done. **

**Also, I just realized FanFiction takes out multiple exclamation marks. Do you guys know how many statements and exclamations in my stories end with more than one exclamation mark? That would be most. Like all those times Eve was yelling at Kate... I had about three to five exclamation marks. They show up as one. Oh well... It's a habit I won't be able to break for a while. Guess it will just have to be filtered... repeatedly.  
**

**This chapter brings us into the movie and is the close of part one… since apparently I split my long stories into part one and part two.**

Chapter Sixteen

As far as Kate was concerned, the next week completely flashed before her eyes. While everything was rushing past her in a blacked out blur, Kate spent every second of spare time that she acquired with Humphrey. This was not too easy, because she was also trying to get some time with Lilly fit in whenever she could. Once or twice, Kate thought about doing something with both Lilly and Humphrey, but then again, Lilly was really young and she knew about Kate's crush on Humphrey so it would be really nerve-racking for Kate.

One night, the week before the next Alpha School semester would begin, Winston called the whole pack together for a ceremony and a bit of a blessing on the future Alpha School students. The ceremony was held under the nearly full moon and each student was individually recognized. Kate blushed a little bit when her turn came to stand up in front of everybody. She was the kind of wolf that liked taking the spotlight rather than it being handed over to her so the entire situation was just awkward. Fortunately for her, the ceremony was over quickly and she was allowed to visit with more of the friends that she would be leaving behind. Kate was soaking up every spare second that she had with her friends, locking away all the memories to visit them when she felt lonely or remorseful during the approaching semester.

And then suddenly, it was Kate's last day. The time was just about gone. Kate found herself playing with her sister Lilly, Kate pretending to be on a hunt with Lilly as the mock caribou or prey of some sort. When Lilly had asked Kate to play earlier that morning, Kate had been a bit reluctant to accept. But she saw the sadness buried in Lilly's eyes and knew that her little sister would be missing her a whole lot when she was gone. So, she did what any "responsible" older sibling would do: she played with her younger sister.

"On one condition," Kate had said. "I get to be the alpha that's on the hunt."

Of course Lilly had agreed. She was just too overwhelmed that Kate was actually going to be playing with her to think of anything else. And now Kate was chasing Lilly through the forest, dodging this tree on the right, and jumping over the fallen log in the pathway, all while working on her agility and skill, most of it made up on the spot. Every now and then, Kate would use some move that had been done on the obstacle course, but inventing moves as you go is much more fun than using something that already exists. Kate was gaining on her younger sister at an alarming rate.

"This caribou is mine!" Kate said with determination.

Lilly turned around, jumping back in surprise when she saw how swiftly Kate had caught up with her. No time to lose, she turned on her back paws and started running away from "Kate on the Hunt." Kate was right behind her. When Lilly discovered how quickly she might be captured, she thought the idea of playing with older sister over again. "Kate!" Lilly exclaimed fearfully. "I'm not a caribou! I'm your sister!" she reminded. Lilly ducked under a log that was suspended over the walkway, hoping that Kate would be slowed down by this change in course.

Kate smiled when Lilly ducked under the overhanging log. This gave her a chance to do a rolling flip in the air right over the log, hopefully landing on or around her sister. Without slowing down, Kate leaped up into the air and started curling her body into a bent "c" shape. She used the energy that was leftover from her run to carry the flip over the log and straight towards Lilly. To her own surprise, Kate landed right in front of Lilly and swiftly jerked around to face her. "Gotcha!" she said laughing at her own ability. Kate was definitely getting a confidence boost in her alpha skills.

"Omegas don't play like this," Lilly informed her sister as she turned to keep running.

Kate smiled. Catching Lilly would not be a problem. "You can't escape the greatest alpha ever!" she exclaimed. SLAM! Kate was so focused on her "prey" that she forgot to look at any obstacles that might be in her path. She had run right into a tall and slender tree. This was definitely a setback.

Lilly laughed at the sight of her sister smashed straight into the tree, her legs sticking out around the trunk. "Well, I just did!" she giggled. Playing with Kate was always an interesting experience. Sooner or later, Kate would do something quirky, stupid, or just plain weird. Kate could always entertain people without even realizing what she was doing.

Kate pulled herself off of the tree. _That was kind of embarrassing. I really hope no one was watching!_ she thought as she shook her head to cancel out the pain. Kate looked ahead and saw Lilly running off but still not too far ahead. Her face lit up when she realized she could easily catch her sister again. Rounding up her strength to resume the hunt, Kate leaped forward grabbing a literal jumpstart to the final portion of the chase.

Lilly kept gaining speed and surprisingly, it looked like she would outrun Kate. She started to head back for the den, thinking that if she beat Kate there then she would be the winner of the game. Of course, she was not planning on Kate getting interrupted by Humphrey.

Kate watched as Lilly ran around the corner of her vision and started running in the opposite direction. Kate leaped in the air yet again, planning to turn around and pursue her sister as soon as she landed. But there was something in her way, in the air as well, and it was headed straight towards her. It was grey, and riding in some sort of half log… As Kate grew closer to whatever it was, she realized what it was. "Humphrey?" she asked with surprise.

"Kate?" Kate heard Humphrey ask.

The next thing Kate knew, she was wrapped in a hug around Humphrey and still in the air. The force of the two wolves colliding had sent them spinning around. Both Kate and Humphrey appeared to be thoroughly enjoying the moment, looking into each other's eyes and pressing their front paws together. Suddenly, the two wolf puppies realized that they were still in the air, so they simultaneously began screaming. When they finished… They were still in the air. So Humphrey struck up conversation with Kate.

"What are you doing up here?" he began, focusing on Kate rather than the blur of forest that was spinning around them.

"I'm practicing hunting for our lunch," Kate answered.

"Oh good, cause I'm about to lose mine," Humphrey said in an attempt to lighten the mood. He really was feeling a little sick from spinning for so long.

"You are? EW!" Kate exclaimed.

"I'll try to swallow it," Humphrey concluded as he closed his mouth and tilted his head back.

As soon as Humphrey finished swallowing his… "stuff," Kate and Humphrey crashed onto the ground with a thud, neither of them really prepared for the sudden impact. Humphrey laughed and smiled at Kate. For the hundredth time since she'd met him, Kate thought Humphrey was cute. She smiled and was about to finish the conversation when a loud and authoritative voice interrupted.

"Kaaaate!" the voice called.

Kate realized it was her father. _Oh no! Is it…_

"It's time to go," Winston said.

Kate didn't want to leave, that was certain, but she could not have another breakdown about leaving Humphrey now, especially in front of her father. The best thing would probably be to just get up, act cheerful, and leave… never looking back. That might be what she needed to do for the entire Alpha School semester… never look back. That would work. "I'm coming, Dad," Kate made herself sound as cheerful as possible.

"Where are you going?" Humphrey asked Kate. She had just got up and started walking away without even saying "good-by."

"Alpha School," Kate began in the same cheery voice. "It goes till spring." Kate kept walking forward. If she turned back to look at Humphrey, she would just become overwhelmed with heartbreak. She was turning her back on her only love in the world, and it was killing her every step of the way.

"Spring? But that's the whole winter away!" Kate heard Humphrey exclaim as she kept walking forward. _Just keep walking… Just keep walking…_ Kate repeated to herself in the silence of her thoughts. _Don't look back, just keep walking. You got this, girl!_ Kate didn't look, but she heard Winston talking to Humphrey. Winston would probably ease things up on Humphrey since he knew that Kate loved him. _Good, he'll cover for me… I hope! Please don't break his heart, Daddy! PLEASE DON'T!_

And Kate kept walking forward. Into the next three months of her life… into Alpha School… into the harsh winter… into what she thought would be the biggest change of her life. She would not look back on what was gone, but would continue to move on to what would come. This was the next chapter in her life.

**END OF PART ONE!**

**(Finally!) **

**Author's Note: I would first like to make it clear that I will not be covering EVERY SINGLE SCENE in the movie with the detail in this chapter. Some scenes will have more, some will have less, and others may even be summed up in a sentence. There's just too much more to include besides telling you guys the entire movie all over again. All I will be doing is important scenes like this where I add in reasons for why everyone is there and then of course the thoughts of the characters which everyone seems to enjoy.**

**There you have it! We're caught up to movie time now… but what about the winter and Alpha School? The movie jumped right over that… I won't. Stay tuned!**

**Remember to review! Thanks a whole lot more than I can type! :D**


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note: OMG GUYS! I! AM! BAAAACKK! More on my absence later. For now, know that I love Christmas break almost as much as I love my readers! :D**

PART TWO!

Chapter Seventeen

It was a rather chilly winter's afternoon when Kate found herself assembled with her fellow future alphas at some location several miles north. As usual whenever one is in a new setting, things were a bit awkward and nobody really knew who would be their new friend or who might turn out to be a mortal enemy. Fortunately, Kate already knew her friends Carly and Nicki. She adhered to them like glue in order to keep things less awkward for all three of them.

Within moments, Winston let out an ear piercing howl in an effort to calm everyone down and bring things to order. Then again, there was not that much noise, since no one really knew what was going on or what they should and should not be doing. The result: everything became still extremely quickly.

"Well, that was definitely easy," Winston said once the few voices that were talking had quieted down.

A small, nervous chuckle rose up from the wolves that were gathered.

"Anyway, I'm sure most of you know me and have probably met Crystal, who will be serving as your primary tutor," Winston continued receiving several head nods in the process. "But who you don't know is each other. I would go around and make everybody come up here and give their name and something about them, but we really do not have the time at this moment since it will be getting dark earlier and earlier each night. So instead, I will just have the wolves that have recently joined the pack come up here and introduce themselves. I think we have three, am I right Crystal?"

Crystal, who had been standing over to the side at a slight angle to the congregated wolves, now walked up to Winston with a confused look on her face and said, "I don't know, Winston! It's only the first day! You expect me to know everybody just like that?"

Another nervous chuckle escaped from the wolves. Crystal would prove to be quite an entertaining tutor in no time.

Winston smirked at the audience. "Okay, how about this. If you are new to the Western Pack, please step up here with us."

Kate looked around the audience in an attempt to spot who the unfortunate "newcomers" might be. Anyone who was made to go up in front of the entire class without knowing a single soul was rather unfortunate in Kate's eyes. Nevertheless, three wolves made their way over to Winston and Crystal.

Once the "newcomers" were onstage, Winston asked them to tell their name, what pack they came from, and something interesting about them that most would not figure out immediately. With all this in place, the first wolf made his way to the front center of the group.

"Um… Hi," a dark gray, male wolf with brown eyes nervously addressed the audience of wolves. Kate, whose mind was still possessed by images and thoughts of Humphrey, took particular notice that his fur was slightly darker than Humphrey's and that he had handsome silver streaks running through it. The new wolf also had a noteworthy scar across his left eye. The scar was quite poignant in Kate's eyes. In addition to all of this, the wolf looked like he was older than most of his peers, maybe even a young adult. "The name's Robert… so, uh, that's what you can call me," the wolf continued, still nervous yet his tension was easing. "And I come way up from Alaska. It's too long of a story to tell up here, so I can tell you once we know each other better."

A brief and rather dull applause arose from the small crowd. No one really wanted to go all out and cheer with yelps and howls since the wolf was pretty much a stranger.

"Thanks Robert," Winston stated. "Who's next?"

The two wolves that remained onstage, one a male and the other a female, looked at each other. The entire audience could tell that they were trying to choose who would go next and who would go last. Since the female looked extremely nervous and very shy, the male did the chivalrous thing and stepped up in front of the female. He was also dark gray, although his shade was significantly darker than Robert's. Kate noticed that he had some sort of Mohawk hairstyle on his head and she was not sure if she found it as cool or just a little intimidating. His eyes were as blue as the tropical sea and they instantly restored thoughts of Humphrey to Kate's rather saddened mind. But the most memorable feature of all about this wolf was that he spoke with an accent. It was not overpowering, but it still had a strong foothold in the wolf's speech patterns.

"Vell, ah, hellyo," the wolf said in a distinct Russian accent. "My name iz Satham, and I come from Russia, just in case vu could not tell by my accent."

Another brief applause arose from the crowd of future alphas.

"Thank you Satham," Winston expressed his gratitude just as he had for Robert. "Last but not least," he said again as he gestured to the final wolf in the background of the small group onstage.

Very timidly, the female wolf that remained stepped forward. In a very vague way, this wolf reminded Kate of Lilly, whom she was missing already. The she-wolf had midnight black fur and navy green eyes, and her overall appearance gave the impression of a wolf/dog hybrid. She looked like an older pup, possibly crossing the boundary into adulthood within the next few weeks. The shy creature simply stood onstage for several seconds, completely paralyzed by fear. Fortunately for her, Robert decided to be an instant friend and gently nudged her out of her trance. Shaking back into reality, the female stuttered heavily as she spoke. "Oh uh… hi…" she let her voice trail off significantly as she tried to choke out the words. "I'm Oahu and I… uhhh… I don't really like to be onstage." As soon as the poor girl finished her brief introduction, she darted back into the comforts of the background, hiding behind Winston, Crystal and the other wolves that were standing up there with her. Kate could not help but feel sorry for her. From a secondhand (or paw) point of view, she knew what one would experience because of a shyness characteristic. After all, this pup was only about as timid as Lilly was in front of large groups of wolves.

"Well, there you have it," Winston concluded. "You three can go back to wherever it was that you were sitting. And now just a quick overview of what you all will be doing for the next three months."

Winston then proceeded to go through the whole routine of what the alphas would be learning over their training session. He explained how Crystal would be the main tutor but that he and Eve would come by every now and then to give the pups extra enrichment training. He went over how the residential territory where the wolves slept would be divided between the guys and the girls and that the territory boundaries there were absolute with absolutely no exceptions made for the students. The only wolves who would be allowed to crossover the "gender line" would be Crystal, Eve and Winston. Of course, breakfast would begin shortly after dawn and as the school advanced, the alphas would learn to get up earlier and organize their own hunting parties. Any other meals would be handled in like manner. Finally, the young wolves were told that the words of Winston, Eve and Crystal were rock solid as far as the boundaries of alpha school extended. Troublemakers, bullies, or wolves that tried to cheat the system would be disciplined and even expelled if necessary.

"Wow! Your dad sounds really strict!" Carly exclaimed to Kate and Nicki once Winston finished explaining everything.

"Don't worry," Kate said mischievously. "He's just trying to scare everybody into behaving. He's not a tyrant or anything. You'll see."

Kate still had a lot to learn on discipline and responsibility.

**Author's Note: First off, thank you to Crowwolf (submitted Robert), theMikMik (submitted Oahu), and Dead Wolf Walking (submitted Satham) for submitting the OCs that I introduced in this chapter. I hope I portrayed them accurately in this first glimpse! They will most likely be showing up in later Alpha School chapters. Those of you who submitted an OC that I haven't gotten to yet, just hang on. I'll be working in a few more in the next chapter and then the one after that. (By the way, if you said something like "If you need him…" or "If you have the space…" or any "if" like that, I may not be planning on using your OC. So if you really want me to use yours, PM me NOW! Like, for real! I don't want to leave someone out that really wanted to see their OC in the story. It's not too late until the chapter is written and posted!)**

**So my absence… Oh gosh! Let's just go with the summarized version. School… Family…. School dance/first date thing… birthday parties… Christmas parties… friends needing/wanting this and that… EXAMS AND ESSAYS… and trying to find a job. Basically, everything came at me at once and my stories had to take a spot close to the bottom on my priorities list. Sorry guys! I REALLY AM SO SORRY TO LEAVE EVERYONE HANGING LIKE THIS! I want you all to know that this killed me and every day I had an ache/hole in my heart because I was not able to work on this story or my other one (Love Knows No Sizes Rewritten). There was not one single day that went by where I did not think of these stories and my FanFic readers/fans and how desperately they all needed attention. I give you all my deepest apologies for this absence and do not plan on it again! I will try my best to get back in my writing zone/mode!**

**Thank you for understanding…. It means a lot guys. I really went through a lot this past month. :')**

**Please please please review… Maybe? YES? I love you guys! :-D**


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note: Whoa! Guys, check it out! Another chapter within the same week! It MUST be Christmas break! Anyway, it's a bit of a filler and an introduction to Alpha School training procedures. You should read it… It would make me happy.**

Chapter Eighteen

Kate awoke early the next morning mainly because she had the lingering fear all night that something "might" happen if she overslept. She was in a den located on the girls' side of the training territory that had been assigned to her, and fortunately had Carly and Nicki with her. As Kate looked around the small and somewhat claustrophobic den, she realized that she was the first one to wake and that the air was very chilly outside. She was sure that snow would be around sooner or later, although she had never actually witnessed a real snowfall.

Minutes later, Carly and Nicki woke up nearly simultaneously. At least now Kate had wolves to talk to until they heard the assembly howl that would call all the students to order.

"Morning girls," Kate greeted her best friends.

"Oh hey Kate," Carly said with an early morning yawn. "I hate waking up early."

"I don't really mind it, I guess," Kate began a conversation on the subject. "I just need one or two days to sleep in every now and then."

"Well, someone told me last night that you have to be used to going on little sleep," Nicki began," especially if you are in line to be one of the main pack leaders." Carly and Nicki both glared at Kate when she said this.

Kate shrugged the topic off. "Psh! Right. As long as my parents are around, I don't have to do anything."

And right then at that exact moment, Winston's assembly howl sounded.

"Except get to breakfast on time," Carly said with a smirk.

"Oh shut up," Kate teased her friend. All three girls just laughed and made their way swiftly over to the meeting area where they had first met the other day.

"Well good morning everyone! Crystal and I have already hunted for today since none of you know how to hunt yet. However, like I said before, as you all advance, you will be expected to hunt for yourselves. That being said, enjoy your breakfast! Crystal is in charge of everyone from now on, because I have to get back to the main pack. Good luck, you will need it!" Winston greeted everyone.

"That totally just gave me every ounce of courage that I needed to go through with this!" Nicki sarcastically said.

"Shh! They'll hear you!" Carly warned.

"Girls, please! I told you that my dad is not a strict tyrant! My mom is the one you really need to watch out for," Kate announced.

"Your mom?" Nicki and Carly both asked with a hint of worry.

"Yeah, you know how overprotective she is, right?" said Kate.

Nicki and Carly both had the most hysterical looking clueless expression on their faces at the mention of this.

"And how long has this been going on?" Nicki asked with extreme shock.

"Yeah, Kate, you kind of NEVER TOLD US ANYTHING!" Carly exclaimed. "How bad is she?"

"You mean I've never said anything about how my mom is a crazed, overprotective wolf who enjoys threatening others with total annihilation?" Kate asked surprised at herself that she had never thought to warn her friends.

"I don't even know if we've met your mom," Carly stated. "If we have, it's so long ago that I don't remember and it really doesn't count." To pups like Carly, if you could not remember doing something, you either did not really do it or it did not matter or "count," as she said.

"I'm sure we'll meet her sooner or later as part of our training. She is the female head alpha," Nicki concluded.

"She always ends up being the most interesting subject of conversations too," Kate stated although it was mostly an outspoken thought. "But I'm hungry, so let's eat!"

"Well shut up and dig in, girl!" Carly exclaimed as she dashed forward to get a slab of meat for all three of them. If you ever stood between Carly and food, you were in trouble. Kate was similar but not as extreme as her friend. It was not that either of them was overweight, it was just a simple love for food that could not be tampered with by anyone or anything. At the bottom of these extremities, Nicki never ate more than she needed, even at parties and other feasts.

After a savory breakfast which left our three friends feeling like they might have a chance at their first day of training, the wolves were all gathered around for a quick round of basic warm up stretches and minor exercises. Crystal, who was actually more in shape than she looked, led everyone through the back bending torture, and jumping jack hyperactivity. And once they had finally finished, the poor wolf could no longer contain herself…

"OH GOSH GUYS! YOU JUST DID YOUR FIRST TRAINING EXERCISES! CONGRATULATIONSSS!" she exclaimed with more energy than any one wolf should be allowed to possess in their life… ever!

The looks on all of the future alphas were priceless. Some had their mouths opened completely stunned that one wolf could be so overexcited about something that really was not that exciting. Other wolves started laughing as quietly as they could. Still others, like Kate, looked around at everyone else to see how the group was reacting and wondered what their expression should look like. Carly and Nicki, on the other hand, took one large and inconspicuous step away from Crystal. Everyone knew this wolf was probably at least partially insane.

"What have we gotten ourselves into?" Carly whispered to her friends. This made her the first to break the previously awkward silence.

"Maybe I should have failed that test…" Nicki thought to herself.

"Oh gosh… I wish Humphrey could see this," Kate whispered to herself. Unfortunately, Carly heard her.

As the conversation among the wolves started to pick up, Carly asked Kate an important question. "You still love him, don't you?"

It was then that Kate realized her inaudible whisper was a bit too audible. _Whoops! Here we go… _she thought. "Oh, yeah… I really do."

"Did you ever tell him?" Carly continued the interrogation.

Kate shook her head regretfully. "No… I didn't want to leave him or me in an awkward situation with me leaving for Alpha School and all."

Carly smiled sweetly. "Kate… I think an expert would say that that's one of the first signs that someone truly cares. I'm not saying I am an expert, though, but if you truly loved him, you would be thinking about him and yourself… and that's exactly what you're doing."

"Carly… I think that is one of the nicest things you've ever said to me," Kate said with a minor blush.

While Carly and Kate were in their little moment, Nicki realized something that her own parents had told her a few weeks ago… _Wait a second! _She thought silently. _Isn't there something about alphas and omegas not being able to become mates in the pack's law? If Kate graduates Alpha School and Humphrey never goes… Then Kate is an alpha and he is an omega which means… THEY CAN'T GET MARRIED! I have to tell her… Well, nah! I don't wanna ruin the moment. I'll just wait until a better time… or maybe we'll learn that in one of the classes and I won't have to say anything… this is a sticky situation…_

"You okay, Nicki?" Carly asked as she noticed Nicki's blank stare into space.

"Hmm… What?!" Nicki snapped out of her inner monologue.

"I think we lost you for a second there," Carly continued.

"Oh, just something I was thinking about," Nicki waved the matter aside.

"Okay!" Crystal's excited voice announced over the small groups of conversations. "What we're going to do now is a bit of a relay race to work on your speed, teamwork, and alertness to everything that goes on around you. You'll see how it all plays in once we start the game. But first, I need everyone to form relay teams of five."

"We need two more," Nicki stated.

"Oh! I know! Let's get a cute guy to be on our team!" Carly suggested excitedly.

"Whatever…" Kate shook her head. She was 'taken' in her own eyesight, whether or not her relationship with Humphrey was real or just in her head. In other words, any guy she met was just a friend… for now.

What Carly did next surprised both Nicki and Kate a little bit. The she wolf walked up to a young male wolf, who was looking around for a group to join, and confidently asked him to join their relay team. With medium dark brown fur, black tipped ears, and an overall trim yet well-built body, the wolf did look rather attractive and seemed to fit Carly's definition of a "cute guy." He was taller than average too.

"Do you want to be on our team?" Carly asked the stranger.

Although the wolf looked slightly caught off guard, he did not appear to be a shy one. "Oh sure!" he exclaimed. "My name's Kenny," he continued speaking with a distinctly young male voice that would sound sweet to any young female.

"Well come on, Kenny," Carly led the wolf over to Kate and Nicki. "Girls, this is Kenny! He's going to join our team." Carly spoke with a large and friendly smile.

Kate and Nicki both politely introduced themselves.

"Wait, do you need another team member?" Kenny asked after counting that only four were in the group.

"Mmhm. Yeah…" Carly said as if it was no big deal.

"Well, I was talking to this other guy a few minutes ago. I think he needs a team if you don't mind," Kenny stated.

""Yeah, bring him over," Kate said in a friendly tone.

As Kenny ran off to go find the other guy, Carly murmured to her friends, "Go get 'em, Tiger…"

Nicki and Kate stared at Carly. "First day and you're already flirting…" Nicki shook her head in disbelief.

"What?! He's cute!" Carly defended. "Isn't he Kate?"

"Yeah, well… I guess so," Kate concluded. "I still think Humphrey's cuter."

Carly shrugged. "Okay, that's fine. You have Humphrey, and I have Kenny…"

"Oh gosh! Seriously, Carly, you just met the guy!" Nicki exclaimed.

Carly just waved Nicki off as Kenny came running back with another young male wolf. This wolf had black fur which was highlighted by a gray underbelly. With stunning yellow eyes, he would also fit Carly's definition of a cute guy.

"Hey there!" Carly greeted. "What's your name?"

Like Kenny, this wolf did not appear to be all that shy. He spoke out quickly, in a voice that sounded like he was very confident in whatever he did. "My name's Cyrus," he introduced himself.

"Ooh! That's a nice name," Carly said. "It starts with a 'C' like Carly, which is my name."

The new wolf laughed at this. "Nice to meet you, Carly."

After introducing herself in a daze, Kate's inner monologue started marveling at what her friend was doing. _Is she really just gonna be this outgoing with guys all of the semester? But then again, I guess it's not a bad thing…_

And from then on, Carly was the first friend that Kate would go to if she ever had a question about a guy.

**Author's Note: Well, looks like you read it! Yay! Thanks guys! Here's a smiley face :-)**

**So let's see… Cyrus is Shen's General's OC, and Kenny is actually mine, but I made him primarily for Crowwolf's stories and just decided to put him in here, since he supposedly is a native of the Western Pack and I needed two "cute guys" for Carly to be fangirling all over. :P She's going to be the flirtier one of Kate's friends.**

**Next chapter (coming soon, not sure exactly when): I think there's something… "important" that might happen. So you should stay tuned! **

**You know what makes me more happy than you just reading the story? It's when you read AND review the story! So if you'd like, you know, feeling generous or just feel like making some writer whose initials may or may not be "HLK" happy, leave a review! Thank ya! **

**And here's another smiley face because I feel generous…. :-)**


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note: Sorry guys, I did mean to do a lot more over Christmas break, but I just still could not find the time. Life has a lot of curveballs it's throwing at me. Whoa! *Dodges one as it flies by* Enjoy what I did get before school this morning, though.**

Chapter Nineteen

"Okay guys," Crystal's cheery voice rang out, "so we're gonna start this race thingy here… sort of."

Kate looked at her friends. They were all thinking the same thing: this wolf is clueless! She was still in charge though, and Winston never left someone in charge that could not handle things in an efficient manner.

"Since this IS a relay race," Crystal continued, "you will be alternating who you work with as things progress. So basically, you'll be with one wolf from your team at the beginning of the race and another team member by the ending. The race itself goes nearly all around the Alpha School territory. It starts and ends about here…" Crystal then grabbed a nearby stick with her mouth and proceeded to scratch out a line in the rather cold and nearly frozen ground. Dropping the stick, she continued, "It goes down through the forest," she pointed to a small cluster of trees behind her back and at the ending of the open field area where the wolves currently were. "And on the other side of the forest is a bit of a steep cliff with a small waterfall running down it. You will be climbing the cliff in order to get one of the stones up there that I already marked off. There's one for each team so if you take more than one in order to make another team fail, well, YOU LOSE! We're not gonna have any of that 'if I do this, the other team can't win. Yay me!' junk. Got it?"

The future alphas, some with rather wide eyes, nodded their heads showing they understood.

"Good!" Crystal responded. "Three teams… three stones… one, two, three!" Crystal gave each of the teams a number just like that. Kate realized her team was number two and held up two claws so that anyone who had not been paying attention could realize. Carly had been staring at Kenny and was not paying attention.

"Carly!" Kate whispered.

The guy-crazed wolf snapped out of her love stare. "Wha-what?!"

"We're team number two, so don't forget!" Kate whispered again.

"Okay," Carly confirmed. And then she turned back to looking at Crystal, with an occasional side stare at Kenny or Cyrus of course! Kate rolled her eyes.

Unfortunately for both Carly and Kate, Crystal had not stopped speaking in their short side conversation. She finished now, with Kate only catching "…after which you will meet back here. First team with all five members back here past the line I drew will win. Got it?"

Everyone but Kate and Carly nodded their heads. _Whoops…_ they both thought as they glanced at each other.

"Nicki!" Kate whispered again. "What the heck are we doing?!"

"Really Kate?" Nicki started. "She just laid everything out for us. It might have been way too fast for some to understand, but still… It was all there."

"So… can you brief me, maybe?" Kate asked.

Nicki rolled her eyes and then explained. "I'll put it this way. Cyrus, you, and I are going ahead of Carly and Kenny to the cliff she was talking about. We wait there until the lovebirds, you know which two I'm talking about, make it to the cliff with a pine cone from the forest marked with our team's number, number two. They hand us the pine cone and we three work together to climb the cliff. At the top, we drop off the pine cone and grab one of the stones, again with our number on it, which we bring back down to Kenny and Carly and we all run back here to meet up. First team with all five members back here past the line I drew, wins! Got it?!" Nicki finished with increased speed and energy on the last two sentences. She was trying to imitate Crystal.

Kate nodded her head. "More or less. Let's just win!"

"Okay…" Nicki trailed off. "But she did emphasize the word 'teamwork.' This is not a one she-wolf show."

"Yeah, so what? She just wants everyone to be included," Kate concluded. "How hard can it be?"

Nicki shook her head again. "Maybe after this you'll be able to understand a little more… Anyway! We gotta get down to that cliff so we can wait for the lovebirds to show up. Come on, Cyrus!" Nicki signaled to Cyrus who had been sitting over to the side, not wanting to get between Carly and Kenny and not wanting to interrupt Kate or Nicki's rather important conversation.

"Okay, let's go," Cyrus said.

The three young wolves ran off towards the cliff, where they would rest alongside the waterfall until Carly and Kenny arrived with some pine cone that they had to retrieve from the forest. About seven minutes later, two wolves emerged from the forest carrying a pine cone. The bad thing? The wolves were not Carly and Kenny like everyone from team number two had been hoping. It looked like Oahu, the shy, timid wolf that reminded Kate of Lilly. Oahu was with another wolf that Kate had not yet met. The other wolf was a male, and he seemed quite a bit larger than most wolves were. He had black fur that flowed into white fur pretty much mixed all over his body. When Kate looked closely, she could even see that half of this wolf's face was white and the other half was black. _Wow! He certainly got the cool coat colors! _She thought. _Good thing Carly isn't here!_ _I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell Nicki, though…_

"Nicki! Look!" Kate finally decided to turn her friend's attention to the new young male wolf.

Nicki looked over to where Kate was gesturing, acting like she really did not care. But when she saw the new wolf, her mouth dropped in surprise and she let out an audible gasp. "Kate! That is the most handsome wolf I have seen in a long time! We have to meet him!"

Aroused by Nicki and Kate's sudden exclamations, Cyrus finally spoke up. "Well, if it helps, I met him yesterday. We're actually roommates for the time being and he's…"

"What's his name?!" Nicki interrupted.

"His name's Will," Cyrus informed.

"Well, will you look at Will…" Nicki said with a smile at her own play on words. Turning to Cyrus, she playfully demanded, "After the race, you're introducing me to him!"

"Uhh… Okay..." Cyrus agreed.

"Wait!" Kate interrupted. "Here come two more wolves!"

Again the three young wolves turned their attention to the opening in front of the forest. There were two more wolves walking out, one male and the other female. With moderately brown fur, the female was of average height and possessed a pair of bright green eyes. Kate actually thought her eyes were very pretty and realized they were worth being jealous over, if she wanted to. But then again, she was happy with her own two golden brown eyes, so there was no need for jealousy. On the opposite side of the female and with a pine cone in his mouth, the male was slightly above average height and looked just a tad on the muscular side though he was far from extremely well built. He had dark brown fur with matching dark brown eyes, and Kate could not help but notice that his fur seemed to be perfectly in place, like it was very well maintained. Since Cyrus had known the other male wolf, Kate decided she would ask him if he knew either of these newcomers.

"So, Cyrus, do you know any of those wolves?" she questioned.

Cyrus smiled. "Well, I know the female is named Alice, for sure. And as for the male…" He paused with his mind deep in thought. "I know someone told me, but I can't think of who it is right now! That is going to bother me until I find out!"

"Which you can do right after you introduce me to Will," Nicki said winking at him. Kate had always thought Carly was the only flirt of the group, but maybe now she had finally rubbed off on Nicki!

With both teams one and team three passing their pine cones on, Kate, Nicki and Cyrus were all beginning to wonder where Kenny and Carly were. They had been waiting for nearly ten minutes! At last, the two wolves emerged from the trees and Kenny had the pine cone in his mouth. _About time…_ Kate's inner thoughts said. _What'd she do to him, I wonder…_

Kenny ran up to the three wolves who were waiting on him. "Sorry guys! Here, take the pine cone and go!"

"That was fun…" Carly said dreamily looking at Kenny.

"On second thought," Kenny began, "Cyrus, can I take your place and help Kate and Nicki climb the cliff?! PLEASE!"

Cyrus looked at Carly and then back to Kenny. "Well, sorry, but you already had your time to shine. Some other time, maybe." And then he took the pine cone and started climbing the cliff with Kate and Nicki right behind him.

Climbing the cliff was quite the interesting experience for Kate. She did not realize how much teamwork should have been put into use until after the race was over unfortunately. And she had to pay for that…

Kate's team was halfway there, the roar of the waterfall somehow giving everyone the adrenaline they needed to work their way up. Cyrus was stuck on one narrow ledge, however. He had taken a different route than Kate and Nicki had in an attempt to find an easier way up, and as his luck would have it, the way he had planned on was too wet and slippery because of stray water droplets from the waterfall that had slowly been pooling up and saturating the grey and brown rocks. "Hey Kate, can you or Nicki lend a paw?" Cyrus asked.

Kate looked back over her shoulder to where Cyrus stood, maybe eight or ten feet below her. "No no! You're fine! I can get the stone and throw it to you. Just stay there!"

"Um, are you sure that's a good idea?" Cyrus questioned the new plan.

"Yeah, it'll work! Trust me!" said Kate. She was about five feet from the top of the cliff… nearly caught up to team one and three, who were even closer. Sadly, she was the only one from her team who had gotten that high. Nicki was also ten feet below her, but she was on the opposite side of Cyrus.

At last, Kate managed to pull herself to the top of the cliff. A black wolf from team three and a grey wolf from team one, both males, happened to get up to the cliff at the same time. She could not say for certain, but the grey wolf looked like Robert, the new wolf that had been introduced in front of everyone the day before. Kate looked over to a rock that was nestled in the center of the stream that turned into the waterfall. The three stones were on this rock, of course, making it all the more difficult. Observing the surroundings, Kate realized that Robert and the black wolf were both on the other side of the stream, which was a fast moving stream at fifteen feet wide. _This is less than ideal…_ Kate thought as she realized she might need her teammates to help her get to the center of the stream… Nah! She could do it on her own… she only had to wade or swim just over seven feet, since the stream looked fifteen feet wide and the stones were on a rock in the center. At this point, she looked over and noticed that the other wolves both had help from their teams coming up behind them… and each of the wolves that were already on the cliff was helping the other up. She noticed that the Robert pulled up Satham, the wolf from Russia, and the black wolf pulled up some other wolf that she did not know and hardly even took the time to care for what he looked like. But what was she doing watching what the other teams were doing?! She had a mission to accomplish!

Fighting the current with all the puppy strength she had, Kate entered the stream and started wading. She had to convince herself that the situation could not be that dangerous, otherwise Crystal would not have put the stones there… right? Eventually, and almost losing her balance and tumbling over the thirty to forty foot drop of the waterfall in the process, Kate managed to grab the stone with the number two on it. Her mission halfway completed, she turned around to make her way back to shore. Apparently, she was beating the other two teams.

When Kate finally leaped out of the stream with the stone still in her mouth, she turned around to check in on the other two teams' process. In horror, she watched as the grey wolf and Satham easily combatted the current with their combined weight by holding onto one another. Satham grabbed their stone and returned with Robert to the shore in less than half the time it had taken Kate to get her stone. _Now I wish I'd helped Cyrus…_ she thought. The black wolf was fixing to do the same thing that Robert and Satham had just done with his own teammate, but he was not going to let Satham get away with his stone before he got away with his. In one quick movement, the black wolf tripped Satham, causing him to drop his stone. Then, he picked up the stone and threw it back into the stream, about halfway back to where it had been. Kate watched as Robert turned around ready to knock the wolf down or something like that, but the black wolf was already climbing down the ledge, and he and Satham were running out of time. As they headed back to get their stone out of the depths of the stream, Kate realized she was short on time as well and needed to get back to her team. She started to climb down the cliff.

Nicki was waiting for Kate. "Just go ahead and throw me the stone," she advised.

"No, hang on, I've got it under control," Kate said. She looked over to her side and saw that there was a branch or root sticking out to the side of the cliff and somewhat above where Cyrus was still standing. With the stone still in her jaws, she jumped to the branch and attempted to grab onto the branch and swing down to Cyrus… also using her jaws.

Nicki watched as the entire scene unfolded in front of her eyes. "Idiot…" she sighed.

Kate had not put everything to play in her mind before she leaped. Flying through the air, she realized in a split second that in order to grab the branch she would have to open her mouth which would inevitably release the stone from her grasp and send it flying down to the ground over thirty feet below her. But she was already in the air now, and if she did not open her mouth to catch the branch, she would fall to her death… and that was much worse than losing a relay race. Regretfully, Kate opened her mouth to grab onto the branch with her jaws… The stone remained in her mouth for a split second upon impact, but then slipped out and fell below her… right where Cyrus was standing.

Within seconds, Cyrus was hit by the stone from above and fell over unconscious. Kate looked below her and saw what had happened. "OH NO!" she gasped with horror as she swung down next to him! He was out cold… and there was a good sized bump on his head!

**Author's Note: UH-OH! Kate should have taken this more seriously... now someone could be critically injured!**

**Thank you Dead Wolf Walking for Alice.  
**

**Thank you Crowwolf for Robert.  
**

**Thank you Dead Wolf Walking for Satham.  
**

**Thank you Shen's General for Cyrus.  
**

**Thank you BellsAreRinging33 for Will  
**

**Hmm... Who was that black wolf? Or that wolf walking with Alice? Wait... who's Alice anyway? And is Cyrus dead or just unconscious? Find out in the next chapter!  
**

**Also, I will close all OC applications after the next chapter of Alpha School. At that point I will be too far into the semester to introduce anyone new, I think, since I kind of have the next few chapters already planned out. At this time, even, I don't think I can take more than two more OCs... so if you're interested... wink wink. (I have OC's, used or on reserve, from these people: Crowwolf, AaOWaSaCD4ever (2), BellsAreRinging33, theMikMik, Dead Wolf Walking (2), Country wolf-dog, Dawn Walker Wolf, and Shen's General. If I didn't name you and you submitted one please PM me so I can make sure I have yours! I really want to use as many as possible here. :-D)  
**

**Crowwolf and I have started a role play forum as well. If you're interested, well, join up! Or PM me for more info and I may make you a moderator. :D All OCs used in this story are welcome! Others are as well, just with my approval (or Crowwolf's). I'd really like to get it in motion eventually, so I'd really appreciate if you guys would at least look at it. It's just us two now, and we PM each other all the time so we really have little use for it until others join up! :-)  
**

**Gotta go guys! TIME FOR SCHOOL! See ya later! Please review this chapter and let me know what you think about this little incident. If you wanna know about more OCs or the forum, PM me. Thank you so so so so much for sticking with me in this time of few updates! It's really hard on me and you guys... So thank you for staying with me. :D  
**


	20. Chapter 20

**Author's Note: Looks like I succeeded in my goal of three updates in three days! (Kate's Story Tuesday, LKNS Wenesday, and now Kate's Story again on Thursday or today!) That's excellent news for me and the awesome readers reading this! So, I guess we had better check in on what's going on with Kate… and the poor wolf who fell victim to her carelessness! Read on, I think Kate might be about to learn her lesson. Better find out! *Reads with you***

Chapter Twenty

"WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO HIM?!" asked a way too energetic and concerned Crystal when she saw Kenny bringing Cyrus with assistance from Robert back to the finish line. Kate was awkwardly lingering behind. The other two teams had already crossed the finish line and because he cheated, the black wolf's team had won.

"Oh, um…" Kenny paused and looked back at Kate, who smiled nervously. "I think she should tell you," he passed the topic on to Kate.

_Great… Now I gotta take responsibility for my own actions…_ Kate thought. But then she realized that maybe she should have started doing just that a long time ago. Maybe if she had just been a better behaved pup then one of her new friends would not be unconscious. But was Cyrus even a new friend? Like he would be her friend after this incident! She could see it now… _"Why would I talk to you? You almost killed me in Alpha School!"_ she imagined him saying. _I might lose friends if I don't change my ways soon._

"What happened to him, Kate?" Crystal asked in a bit of a calmer tone.

Kate refocused her mind into reality. "Oh… Weeeelllll…" Her voice trailed off. She had two options. Option number one: Lie about it. Say he was hit on the head because the stone fell over the edge when she was climbing back down or something like that. Option number two: Tell the truth, own up for her actions, and begin a more positive trend into being a more responsible and better behaved young she-wolf, eventually becoming one of the best alphas of the Western Pack. Kate knew the _right_ thing to do, but was it what she _would_ do? The same instincts that had held her as mischievous since just after birth told her option number one was the quick, "express" way out of the situation. But now something new inside of her told her it was deeply wrong and would cost her some friends. The last thing Kate wanted to do was lose a friend! With this in play, she remembered back when she and Humphrey were spending time together and that one conversation she had had with him, where she asked him what he wanted in a female wolf. Most of the answers had vanished with time in her memory, but one in particular stood out to her. Humphrey had said he wanted his mate to be responsible, so that one day she would make a good mother! Now Kate knew what she had to do. If she would not do it for herself or even for the sake of keeping the trust of her friends, she would do it for Humphrey, the one wolf in the entire world that she loved, no matter what happened! It was time for Kate to grow up and start doing the right thing.

"I'm waiting!" Crystal stated in a demanding tone.

_Okay… This one's for you, Humphrey,_ Kate's mind said. "Um, well, you want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right?"

"If I don't get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I'm expelling you from Alpha School! We are not going to put up with lies over things like this!" Crystal stated.

_Wow! She can be assertive,_ Kate discovered. "Okay, here it is. I was playing lone wolf and trying to do all of the relay race myself, being a total jerk about it and refusing to accept help from my team. I was the only one that made it up to the top of the cliff where I fought the current of the stream on my own to grab our team's stone. And on the way back down, I saw the root of some plant sticking out from the cliff and used it to swing myself down. The major mistake was that I used my jaws to hold the stone and to grab the root branch. Of course the stone slipped out and fell down to Cyrus, who had asked for my help earlier to get higher up but I had refused to assist him. So, it's all my own fault. If I had helped Cyrus to get up higher, he would not have been down where he was when I dropped the stone. And I would not have dropped the stone if I had thrown it down to Nicki, like she advised me to." After explaining, Kate turned to her team who had gathered around to watch and listen. "I'm sorry guys. I promise that from now on, I will be more responsible so things like this won't happen."

Everyone on Kate's team, except Cyrus who was still out, smiled warmly when they heard this. And then Nicki spoke up, "I think I speak for all of us when I say that we don't even care about the stupid relay race anymore! We're just glad you're going to make a change for the better! That and we'd really like to know if Cyrus is okay."

Crystal's eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "CYRUS!?" she turned back to the unconscious wolf, who had not moved. And then, she started giving out instructions. "Alright guys! I was going to give you your first aid lesson tomorrow, but due to certain circumstances, we will move it to today! Do I have a volunteer?"

Everyone looked around the group, looking for the wolf brave enough to raise his or her paw. A solid black, muscular wolf with brown eyes raised his paw. Kate noticed that one of his ears was flopped over onto his head like it had been injured and never properly stood up. It was definitely not the same wolf that had cheated in the relay race, however.

"I'll volunteer," the wolf said.

"Great! What's your name?" Crystal spoke in a tone that meant business here and now!

"Everybody just calls me CJ," he said.

"Perfect! Okay, I need you to go out to the forest and bring back some special herbs, particularly Angelica roots or leaves and burdock. They'll help him relax when he wakes up just so he doesn't go into some sort of weird shock phase. Do you know what those herbs are and how to find them?"

"Well, yes, actually. I have a bit of medical experience. Not much, but still some."

Crystal smiled. "Too bad we don't have time for history on your life now. Maybe later. Anyway, I need you to go and find me some as quickly as possible," she spoke quickly and in a tone that made everyone have to follow her orders as soon as she gave them. All her hyperactive energy was finally becoming a bit more productive.

CJ immediately ran into the forest in search of what she had asked for.

"I need another volunteer to help me wake him up!" Crystal's voice rang out. "We should probably make it a girl just in case we need to administer mouth-to-mouth respiration."

The young wolves stared at Crystal and then at Cyrus with wide eyes at the phrase "mouth-to-mouth." But eventually, a female wolf raised her paw. The wolf had black fur that had a bit of a violet tint to it. She was slightly shorter than average and wore a very pretty necklace around her rather short and thin neck. The necklace had shiny jewels in it and they looked like diamonds! Her eyes were neon red.

"I can help," the wolf meekly said.

"That's great!" Crystal replied still hyperactively. "Just come on over here and we'll see if we can't revive him."

Kate watched as Crystal and Veronica tried to correct her mistake. She felt really bad about how she had caused all of this on really the first official day of Alpha School and even worse about how she had even considered the option of lying and blaming some other force of nature. While she was staring at the scene in front of her, a jet black furred wolf came right up to her and sat beside her. Kate glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and saw that he was very muscular and that his eyes were a piercing yellow. As a female wolf, she had to admit it was quite an attractive feature. The only problem was that this was the same black wolf that had cheated in the relay race! He had to be trouble.

Kate was not surprised when the wolf spoke to her, but she was surprised at the tone and attitude he used. "Quite a race we had, huh Babe?" he said mischievously and in a sexy way.

Kate whipped her head around to look straight at the wolf that had just hit on her! "Actually, my name is Kate, not Babe…" she began her voice trailing off in casual confusion.

"Oh that's right!" he playfully said. "Just you're a pretty hot she-wolf, that's all. Thought I was doing you a favor or something."

"What's your name?" Kate evaded the topic.

"Name's Ash," the black wolf said. "But you can call me Sexy, Hot Stuff, or any nickname along that line your pretty mind can think of." He finished with a wink at Kate.

Ash had just met Kate, and he was already hitting on her!

**Author's Note: Those of you who are reading Love Knows No Sizes Rewritten have already met Ash… Those of you that haven't read that story, well, what do you think about him? He is my OC. ;-)**

**OCs! Thank you to ChineseChestBreach for giving me Veronica!**

**Thank you Country wolf-dog (or Cw-d) for giving me CJ!**

**And all the other authors who's OCs I have been using! I'm out of time to name everyone again this chapter… Sorry guys!**

**At this time, I will not be able to accept any more OCs. Thank you to everyone who did send me one! It really helped the story out a lot!**

**Tune in next chapter to see how the rest of Kate's Story plays out and to find out if Crystal can successfully revive Cyrus! **

**Please review! I'd like to hear your opinion on this new wolf Ash! :D**


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note: More on who Ash will be in here! Read up!**

Chapter Twenty-One

Fortunately, for Kate, Crystal's voice rang out above her and Ash's conversation. "Cyrus is awake!" she announced.

Moments later, CJ came running towards the group with the herbs Crystal had requested. He set them down in front of Cyrus, and Crystal immediately took them up and held them up to Cyrus's face so that he would breathe in their relaxing scent.

"Just breathe slowly and relax," Crystal soothed him. "The last thing we need is you passing out again."

"Again?" Cyrus asked through heavy panting. "What happened?"

Meanwhile, Ash was not going to let up on his latest treasure. He completely ignored the wolf in need that was in front of him, and positioned himself between Cyrus and Kate's line of vision. "So anyway, Ms. Hot Stuff," he began, "I was thinking, you know, you and me and some caribou one day before or after training."

Kate had absolutely no idea how to respond to what Ash was doing. She thought that she was not romantically interested… but Ash was pretty sexy looking. And he would be a fully trained alpha like her. Maybe… just maybe… Humphrey was not the best option. Right now, however, it was not the main concern. The main concern was the injured wolf in front of them, and Kate did not enjoy how Ash was completely ignoring the situation, using it to his advantage in order to win a date with her!

"Look, Mister," Kate started. "I don't know what you may think you're trying to do here, but it is not appealing! There is a critically injured wolf right in front of us and it's all my fault! So if you'll excuse me, I need to go and apologize." Kate turned her tail to Ash and started walking away from him.

"Oh come on!" Ash continued. "Apologize? Really? That's for losers, Kate, not pretty little winners like you!"

Kate ignored Ash and walked up to Cyrus, who was beginning to calm down and slowly adjusting to his new surroundings.

"Here's Kate," Crystal said to Cyrus when he saw her approaching. "She'll explain to you what happened, and hopefully apologize." Crystal glared at Kate when she said "hopefully."

Kate sat down next to Cyrus. "Um, hey," she began.

"Hi," Cyrus simply said.

Kate nervously breathed in and then continued, jumping straight to the reason she had come over to him and away from Ash. "Listen, I'm really sorry about what happened in the relay race and all. I was being really selfish and not working with my team like I should have been. I should have helped you up from that tough spot you were in when you asked me to, and I should have let everyone work with me instead of just leaving everyone idle. It was not the least bit responsible. And then I was just plain stupid when I jumped to that root with the stone in my mouth."

Cyrus could not help but chuckle at Kate calling herself "just plain stupid."

Kate smiled when she saw that Cyrus was chuckling. This gave her the confidence that he would probably end up forgiving her in the end. "So what I'm trying to say is, I'm really sorry for everything I caused today. And I think I may finally have learned my lesson."

Cyrus smiled back at Kate. "I forgive you."

Kate was a little surprised at how quick Cyrus was to forgive her. She knew he would probably end up forgiving her in the future, but she did not expect it to be so quick. "Really?" she asked doubtfully. "I mean, I kind of almost killed you. You don't want to get back at me or take out your anger in any way?"

Cyrus shook his head. "Are you kidding me? Why would I stay mad at you? The only thing that would cause is me losing a friend."

At the mention of the word "friend," Kate's face brightened up. "You wanna be friends?" she confirmed what she had heard.

"Of course! I can't stay mad at you, or anyone really for that matter! It would just give me a huge headache!"

_What a sweetheart…_ Kate thought. Cyrus's personality was definitely bringing back memories of joy regarding Humphrey. "Thanks Cyrus," she finally said and she leaned down to hug him.

Veronica, the wolf that had helped Crystal to revive Cyrus, had been watching the whole scene. She was relieved, of course, when she saw that Cyrus had awoken. "I'm just glad we did NOT have to do mouth-to-mouth respiration," she said loud enough for all to hear.

Every wolf that heard her laughed at this comment. No one really wanted to witness that on their second day of Alpha School.

"Okay everyone!" Crystal said. "You are all dismissed. We've had enough training and experiences for one day."

Little by little, the wolves that were gathered around began to make their way back to their dens. Kate was going to head back to hers that she shared with Carly and Nicki, but she decided to drop in a "good job," to some of the wolves she vaguely knew from other teams that had beaten her. It would show that she was learning her lesson as well as make others feel good about themselves. Eventually, she found Robert and Satham over to the side, getting ready to head back to their den. She knew that they had been the victims of Ash's cheating, so she decided to go give them a "good job," or some other compliment like that.

"Hey guys," she greeted as she sat next to them.

"Hey, um, Kate, right?" Robert confirmed he had her name right.

"That's me," Kate said. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you two know that I liked your way of working together back there on top of the cliff. If I had thought things out more, I might have been able to do something like it with someone on my team. So, good job, I guess."

"Thanks," Robert replied. "Satham and I thought of that simultaneously as soon as we got up there and saw the terrain we'd be facing."

"Vell, I thought ov it and he vas quick to agree," Satham explained in his distinct Russian accent.

"Yeah yeah…" Robert rolled his eyes knowing it was true.

And right at that moment, the one wolf Kate did NOT want to congratulate joined the group. "Move it, Russian!" he rudely shoved Satham over so he could talk to Kate.

Kate noticed a deep growl starting from within Robert and his left eye shifted to a blood red shade. _Uh-oh…_ she thought.

"Hey Babe," Ash started his flirting up from where he had left off earlier, "did you ever think of a time we could share some caribou together?"

"You two are going to date?" Robert asked under a growl.

"That's right!" Ash smiled mischievously.

"NO! We're not!" Kate confirmed.

"Okay, vhat's going on here?" Satham stepped back from the wolves and ran over to get Crystal's attention.

"Sure we are, Babe," Ash continued. "You know you want to…" he winked at Kate again.

Kate could not believe she had even questioned her love with Humphrey now! Of course he was the best option! What other wolf was as kind, sweet, loving, fun, and actually caring as he was? Ash was just a jerk! Nothing but a bully and a player who was asking for trouble! "Ash, I would not date a heartless bully and complete jerk like you ever in my life!"

Then Ash took things one paw-step too far. He put his arm around Kate and started stroking one of her shoulder blades. "Just chill, Kate. You can be my girl, and we'll live happily ever after."

"GET YOUR FREAKING PAWS OFF ME!" Kate yelled in a voice that very much resembled her mother's fits.

"Whoa! Baby, calm down," Ash kept trying. He rubbed his head on the side of hers.

_That's it!_ Kate thought. She jerked out of Ash's grasp and bit his ear as hard as she could. "Leave me alone!"

"OW! GEEZ!" Ash yelped in pain and felt teeth marks in his right ear. He pushed Kate to the ground in anger.

Kate whimpered as she fell to the cold, hard ground. How could one wolf be trying to "love" you one moment and shoving you to the ground the next? She did not have time to answer her own question though. When she looked up, she saw Robert leaping on top of Ash and pinning him to the ground. For a moment, it looked like Robert would kill Ash instantly. But Kate looked closer and saw that Robert was saying something to him.

"You leave Kate, me, Satham, my friends, and anyone else in this Alpha School alone, got it?!" Robert said as he pushed his paws down onto Ash's throat.

Ash snapped his teeth and did not answer.

"I'm not letting go until you agree!" Robert informed him.

Ash did not respond. Finally, he choked out "I'm not gonna let someone like you tell me what to do! Now get off of me!"

Robert would not have gotten off of Ash, if Crystal had not knocked him off herself. "Break it up you two!" she yelled.

Ash got back on his four paws and looked like he was about to tackle Robert again. He lowered himself down, getting ready to pounce, but was stopped by an affirmative paw from Crystal.

"Chill! Both of you just chill!" she commanded. "This is Alpha School where we train to lead and defend the pack! We are not going to be fighting each other! Am I clear?"

Robert nodded his head, but Ash ignored her.

"Am I clear?!" she yelled again.

Reluctantly, Ash nodded his head in agreement.

"Good! Now get back to your dens, and get some sleep. I don't want to see either of you until breakfast time tomorrow!" she said. Robert started to head towards his den, but Crystal caught Ash before he could leave. She turned his face towards hers and looked straight into his flaming yellow eyes. "If you cause any more trouble like this, you are out of Alpha School! Got it?"

Ash nodded his head with a growl.

"Shut the growl up!" Crystal said.

Ash stopped growling.

"Good. Now get to your den, and stay there until you here my howl tomorrow for breakfast."

Kate was wide eyed, and still lying on the ground, from what she had just seen! She had never seen Crystal so authoritative! The Alpha School instructor turned towards Kate. "Are you alright?" she asked.

Kate pulled herself off of the ground. "Yeah, I'm fine" she said.

"Okay. Good! Looks like that Ash guy is trouble, doesn't it?"

"I'll say!" Kate rubbed the shoulder Ash had put his paw around.

"Did he hurt you?" Crystal said shocked.

"Well, not really, it was just kind of traumatizing." Kate told a partial lie. She did not want Crystal getting in on her personal life right now.

"Okay. I'm so sorry this had to happen! If I can find any way at all, I'm expelling Ash from Alpha School. Your dad would be the first to agree with me that this behavior is not accepted in the Western Pack and it will not be tolerated." She paused for a second to look Kate over. "You sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," Kate lied.

"Alright. Go get your sleep, and I'll see you tomorrow for breakfast. There's some leftover meat if you want dinner. Or I can bring it to your den," Crystal offered.

"No, really, it's fine! And I'm not hungry anyway," Kate informed.

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow morning." And with that, Crystal left Kate alone.

Kate looked up to the sky seeking stress relief. The sky had long since clouded over, and looked as if it may rain. But surprisingly, rain was not what fell from the clouds. Snow came instead. Kate looked around as the white, fluffy stuff started to cover everything around her. _Well,_ she thought, _now I know how something can be cold, wet, and flaky all at the same time._ She caught a snowflake on her muzzle and stared at it for a while, before finally licking it off to taste it. Kate could not help but giggle at the thought of herself doing this.

**Author's Note: WOW! Ash is a full out bully and a jerk! Hmm… This might be interesting. Hehe…**

**Let me know in a review! Tell me how much you hate Ash… you know… kind of like what you did for Christina in Garth's Story. ;-) Thanks guys!**

**Veronica is from ChineseChestBreach**

**Crystal is from AaOWaSaCD4ever**

**Robert is from Crowwolf**

**Satham is from Dead Wolf Walking**

**Cyrus is from Shen's General.**

**Thanks guys! Don't forget to review! We need to give Ash his fair share of hate mail! Haha!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note: Chapter Twenty Two! Hooray!**

Chapter Twenty-Two

SPLOSH!

Kate awoke to something cold, wet, and flaky hitting her cheek. Startled at the sudden wake up call, she flashed her eyes open to see what was going on. Carly was snickering just outside of the den and scooping up some of the snow into a small pile. _Oh great…_ Kate thought. _What's she up to?_

"Good morning, Kate," Carly said in a cheery mood. "Don't you want to come out and look at the snow? It's the first we've ever seen!"

Kate moaned sleepily and then stretched out her muscles, letting out a yawn full of wolf morning breath in the process. "I slept like a rock," she said immune to Carly's excitement. "How did you guys sleep?"

SPLAT!

Something slammed into the back of Kate's head. Slightly irritated, Kate turned around to see Nicki grinning mischievously, apparently doing a horrible job at trying to look innocent. "Nicki?" Kate said.

"What?! It's so flippin' fun! Throw some snow with us, Kate!" Nicki said as she left the den to join Carly, who was still making a pile of snow.

Kate joined her friends. "What are you doing with this stuff anyway?"

"We're making snowballs!" Carly said as she finished her pile of snow and scooped it into her right paw. "My dad told me that it was something we could do in the snow whenever it came." Carly then launched the snowball from her paw and towards an uncovered rock simply for the joy of watching her creation explode! There was something just way too exciting about snow going in every direction when it made impact.

Mimicking her friends' methods, Kate stooped down and gathered snow into a small pile with her paws. Then, she picked up the pile and threw it at Carly's shoulder. Carly squealed from the sudden burst of cool snow! "That is for the rude wake up call," Kate said.

In response, Carly delivered a friendly smirk to her friend. "Alrighty then…" she began, but something was in her voice that sounded as if she were plotting something. "Let me show you what else my dad taught me!" Turning her tail towards Kate, Carly supported herself on her front paws and used her back paws to kick up several clumps of snow. The icy cold clumps slowly but surely began to bury their helpless victim!

"Aaah! Okay! That's cold! Realllllllllyyyy COLD!" Kate said as snow clump after snow clump was flung at her. "Alright! Alright! I get it!" Kate hollered hoping that Carly would cease the attack.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist!" Carly apologized with an innocent smile.

"Sure sure…" Kate sarcastically accepted the apology. "I'll keep that little maneuver in mind. Never know when it will come in handy."

Crystal's howl interrupted the fun moment the young alpha females were sharing. It was time for a nice breakfast of fresh caught caribou. Well, if Crystal had hunted for them, that is. Everyone knew that sooner or later the alphas in training would have to start catching their own breakfast. When that happened, who knew how things would turn out?

"Come on you guys!" Nicki grabbed Kate's and Carly's attention. "Breakfast time! And I'm so hungry, I could eat the whole caribou myself!"

Reluctantly, Kate and Carly followed Nicki to go and get their breakfast. As Kate was walking alongside her friends, her mind started to wonder… What would happen if and when she sees Ash again? The Alpha School only had some fifteen wolves enrolled in it. There was not a large chance that she would never see him again at all! The only thing that she could do was hope that there would not be any more trouble from him like what he had caused on the previous day. Fortunately, Kate and her friends reached the feeding area before Kate could get herself too worked up about the future.

Crystal was already evenly dividing up the portions of the caribou that she had managed to catch. Kate, Carly, and Nicki each lined up behind the few wolves that had made it over before they had. A quick glance around the area told Kate that Ash was nowhere to be found. He was probably out hitting on some other female or being a complete jerk and ignoring the call to breakfast. Maybe he would not show up and would miss out on food. Kate grinned mischievously at this. Getting back at someone was probably wrong, but it sure was satisfying, even if she was not directly getting back at him herself! _I hope that loser does miss breakfast,_ Kate's mind said.

Moments later, the three girls had received their share of caribou for the morning and were looking for somewhere to go and eat it.

"Should we find some other wolves to sit with?" Nicki mumbled with her caribou fastened tightly in her jaws.

"LIKE GUYS!" Carly yelled as best as she could with food in her mouth.

Kate rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's just sit with a mixed group." Then she saw a group of three wolves sitting over to the side. "Let's go sit by them!" Kate gestured to two males and a female sitting over in the corner. The female would probably appreciate the company of more females since she was surrounded by two guys anyway.

"Okay," Carly and Nicki agreed, Carly just a bit more excitedly than Nicki.

And with that, the three wolves walked over to the group to share breakfast and get to know more wolves that were in their Alpha School class. _Meeting wolves is fun_, Kate thought.

**Author's Note: Who will Kate, Carly and Nicki sit by? Chapter 23 should tell us. Sorry this one is a little shorter than normal, but it's what I had time for tonight. :D Please review! Hope you all enjoyed! I'll update sometime this weekend if time allows. Just been REALLY busy still. **

**Singing Taylor Swift's song: I don't know about you! But this is chapter 22! Everything will be alright now that I'm next to you!**

**Sorry guys, that song was just in my head as I wrote this chapter. LOL!**

**Oh, by the way, I've got a forum going! It's in the forums section for Alpha and Omega and we've got quite the conversation going. So far, we have Crowwolf, Country wolf-dog, Shadow Wolf 2016, dinoj62, Prototype Apex, Rexie Cakes, and Alpha Andrew as members! (Special thanks to those awesome people for joining!) We're having a great time talking to each other back and forth and will be starting a role play sooner or later. And we'd love to have you join! All you need is a FanFiction account! Look forward to seeing you there! It's called "HLK's Forum: For Role Play, Story Assistance, and Just Plain Chatting."  
**

**Thanks for reading! All reviews accepted with open arms! ;-)  
**


	23. Chapter 23

**Author's Note: GUYS GUESS WHAT! I'M NOT DEAD! :O Here's chapter 23 to Kate's Story with a brief explanation on my unexplained absence to follow the end of the chapter. Important! 300th reviewer gets a shoutout in the next update!**

Chapter Twenty-Three

With their mouths watering from the food they were carrying, Carly, Nicki and Kate approached the small cluster of wolves. "Can we join you?" Carly asked.

One of the males, a muscular, solid black furred wolf with chocolate brown eyes and an ear that laid flat on his head, immediately responded, "Sure! We'd love to have the company!"

As if making sure this was okay with her friends, Carly glanced at Kate and then at Nicki. Kate looked normal, of course, but perhaps a bit hungry. Nicki, on the other paw, had some sort of strange and twisted smile developing on her face. Her eyes were locked onto the wolf right next to the one that had spoken with them and were refusing to look elsewhere! The wolf had a mixture of a black and white coat. Indeed half of his face was white fur and the other half was black fur. Nicki recognized him as Will, the wolf that she thought had a "cool coat" the other day during the relay race. She had wanted Cyrus to introduce her to him but of course there was the slight problem of him almost being killed. Because she was basically her best friend, Carly knew exactly what Nicki was feeling just by her facial expressions: Nicki thought this guy was smoking hot!

"Nicki!" Kate said waving her paw in front of the lovesick wolf's obvious gaze at the new guy. "Aren't you going to sit down?" She and Carly were already seated and had started eating their share of the raw caribou.

Shaking her head in order to refocus on reality, Nicki realized what she had been doing. She dropped the meat to the ground and then took a seat across from Will. "Oh, uh, did I zone out again? Ha ha! Happens all the time…" she tried to cover up her developing crush. But in reality, she was blushing so hard that Kate and Carly could see the red under her dark tan fur.

"Well, anyway, I don't think we've properly met," the black wolf with the flat ear said. "I'm CJ, the wolf to my right is Will, and this is Alice." CJ gestured to Will and then to the female wolf, who had brown fur with a white underbelly. Kate noticed that this was the same wolf she had thought had very pretty bright green eyes the other day in the fateful relay race. She had been with that other wolf, the one whose name Cyrus could not remember. Kate still had a lot of wolves to meet and socialize with before Alpha School ended.

The social situation that the six wolves were now faced with was slightly awkward, as the conversation began slowly and then would end up tapering off when someone accidentally made the mistake of saying something that wrapped up a particular subject. Kate had always hated it and felt guilty when she would do something that killed the conversation around wolves that she was not completely comfortable with. But these wolves were her classmates for the rest of the winter, so she might as well get comfortable with them and avoid any and all awkward situations whenever possible. For a group of young wolves who were not fully mature yet, however, awkward was a normal circumstance. Growing into adulthood really was a challenge.

"So, um, you're Will, right?" Carly said to the black and white wolf after another awkward silence had settled in.

"Yeah," Will responded to Carly's question. He did not look like he would prove to be much of a talker, but Carly knew Nicki was "interested" in him so she attempted casual conversation.

"What did you think of that relay race yesterday?" Carly kept the talking going.

"It was fun," Will plainly said back. Then he returned to his own breakfast, pulling off a large chunk of meat from the bone he had in front of him. He chewed it slowly and for one whole awkward minute, the only audible noise was the sound of Will consuming his caribou. Obviously, he was either extremely quiet or was outright not interested in socializing.

Kate and Carly stared at each other, each most likely thinking the same thing: _New goal: Get this guy to talk more often._

Fortunately, Carly caught Will again before he grabbed another piece of caribou. She did not give up that easily. "So Will… I couldn't help but notice your interesting fur patterns. Did you get those from your mom or your dad?"

"Both," Will plainly said yet again. He was about to grab another piece of caribou, but Carly still kept at her "new goal," and pounded him with a more open question.

"What are your parents like?" she said quickly.

"Well they are both alphas and wanted me to become just like them, I guess. So they made sure I passed the ASAT sooner or later. I wanted to be an alpha anyway because I really like being physical and I love to hunt! But they're really nice to me, I guess. They always took care of me and made sure I was well fed and happy. They were a little strict every now and then, but it never was too bad."

Carly looked over at Kate with a smirk on her face as if she was gloating that she had actually gotten Will to share some information on his puppyhood. Kate held out her paw gesturing for a "high five" and Carly smacked it with her own paw in response. Their goal was accomplished for now.

Much to the relief of the wolves, everyone's favorite hyperactive wolf, Crystal, called the students to order. On the way over, however, CJ ran over to Carly and Kate and walked alongside them. "Hey," he casually said.

"Hey there!" Kate responded back in a similar casual tone.

"Listen, I just wanted to thank you two for coming over there when you did. I tried to break the awkward silence, but apparently both Will and the other wolf, Alice, are not very talkative. It was getting really bad. I'm really glad you showed up when you did!" CJ explained gleefully.

"Well," Carly began, "it's kind of what we do. Kate, Nicki and I…" She stopped suddenly as she looked around for the second person she had mentioned. "Wait! Kate, what happened to Nicki?" Carly asked.

Meanwhile, Nicki was walking alongside Will, still trying to get him to talk to her. "So… you like using those muscles of yours, don't ya?" she tried using pickup lines.

Will was slightly taken aback at the rather flirtatious side Nicki was showing to him. "Oh, well, actually, yes. I mean! No! Well, what I mean to say is that…" he was stuttering, and Nicki seemed to be enjoying his reaction. For all anyone knew, she thought he was being extremely cute in his stuttering speech.

But fortunately for Will and unfortunately for Nicki, everyone had arrived in front of Crystal and the hyperactive wolf soon began explaining to the young wolves what their hunting training would consist of. Ranting on about what might be expected, Crystal said something like, "I can't wait to show all of you how to hunt for your future pack! This is going to be so much fun, I mean, you guys just have no idea! We'll be learning some techniques and moves over these next few days that will help you when you're hunting on your own and in groups. Pretty soon, you'll be taking down those large caribou like a pro! Except… you WILL be a pro. Doesn't get more professional than this!" The slightly insane wolf finished with an enormous smile on her face. "Let's get started!" she called out.

**Author's Note: Well, uh, my near two month absence? -_- My life got in the way. I had one thing right after the other pop up unexpectedly and I had to deal with it all as it came. It wasn't fun and I NEVER got true free time. It was actually a little depressing. But, eh, what the heck? I got over it and things are finally starting to calm down in my personal life. I won't rant on about it anymore (unless you want me to tell you in a PM. Hehe...). I don't know if I will be back to a more regular updating schedule because of this but I can say that I definitely hope I will! I will be trying my hardest, guys. I really will! :-D You all mean so much to me and I don't want to leave unexpectedly like that ever again!**

**Thank you BellsAreRinging33 for Will**

**Thank you Country Wolf-Dog for CJ.**

**Thank you Dead Wolf Walking for Alice. **

**And thank you AaOWaSaCD4ever for Crystal. We all love our hyperactive Alpha School teacher.**

**Also, I have opened a new poll on a possible story after Kate's Story is finished. A lot of you have already voted on that, so thank you for doing so. To my anonymous readers, unfortunately, FanFic makes it so that you must have an account to vote. If it was up to me, I'd say VOTE AWAY! Buuuut it's not. Sorry about that. You can always tell me in your review, I guess, and I can mark it down. :D**

**I think that's it for now! Sorry about the long A/N but... Hey! I haven't updated in nearly 2 months! Sorry about that again...**

**Please review! I'll be giving a shoutout to the 300th reviewer in the next A/N. And by shoutout, I mean announcement in all caps and bold type before the next chapter begins. But remember, it would not have been possible for there to ever be a 300th review without such awesome reviewers like all of you! Thanks so much guys... I just... I can't believe this story has gone so far. I have a happy tear in my left eye now. :') *Pause* And now I have one in both. :')**


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